DOE Oil Inventories Cause Reaction (USO, UGA, PSX, VLO, OIH)

The Department of Energy is out with its weekly oil and gasoline inventory data and we saw a slight drop in the crude with a slight gain in gasoline inventories. Weekly DOE crude oil stocks fell by 133,000 barrels to 387.166 million barrels.  Dow Jones had a consensus calling for a drop of a half-million barrels, so this is a lower drop than expected.   United States Oil (NYSEMKT: USO) is up almost 1.3% at $30.17.

Gasoline inventories rose sharply with a gain of 2.078 million barrels.  Dow Jones was looking for only a gain of 800,000 barrels and we were looking for a build of even less than the Dow Jones target.  United States Gasoline (NYSEMKT: UGA) is trading down over 0.5% at $46.34.

The refining capacity popped back up and is running at a very high level of 92.6% versus 91.9% last week and versus 92.1% expected by Dow Jones.  We were targeting anything better than last week’s data so this is a better than expected gain all around. Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) is up 0.85% at $32.85 and Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO) is up 0.8% at $23.53.

The oil and gas services companies have seen shares pop then drop so far this morning considering this report.  The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) is up much more with a 1.2% gain to $33.46 this morning against a 52-week low of $32.54.

JON C. OGG