The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 1.7 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory to 399.4 million barrels, and they remain well above the upper limit of the five-year range for this time of the year.

Total gasoline inventories increased by 1.6 million barrels last week and remain in the lower half of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the EIA’s measure of consumption) averaged 8.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up about 2.1% from the same period a year ago.

Distillate inventories rose by 1.9 million barrels last week and remain below the lower limit of the average range. Distillate product supplied averaged 4 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 7.5% when compared with the same period of last year. Distillate production averaged 4.9 million barrels a day last week, about 100,000 barrels a day below the prior week’s production.

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Tuesday evening, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by 3 million barrels in the week ending April 25, together with a decline of 49,000 barrels in gasoline supplies and a rise of 688,000 barrels in distillate supplies. For the same period, Platts estimated a rise of 2.1 million barrels in crude inventories, a decline of 1.75 million barrels in gasoline inventories and a rise of 1 million barrels in distillate inventories.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices closed at $101.28 on Tuesday and traded down about 1.8% before the EIA report at around $99.50 a barrel. The WTI price rose slightly to around $99.75 shortly after the report was released.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.5 million barrels a day, down about 313,000 barrels a day from the previous week. Refineries were running at 91% of capacity, with daily input of 16 million barrels a day, down just 26,000 barrels below the previous week’s average.

Refinery maintenance is essentially finished and throughput is above 90% of capacity for the second consecutive week. The buildup in distillate inventories indicates that refiners are continuing to export refined products, which offer them a far better margin per barrel than producing gasoline for domestic consumption. Pump prices should begin to level off until we get closer to the Memorial Day weekend at the end of May.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $3.691, up from $3.673 a week ago and $3.555 a month ago. Last year a gallon of regular cost $3.508 on average in the United States.

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Here is a look at how share prices at three U.S. producers are reacting to this report.

Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) traded down about 0.5%, at $100.98 in a 52-week range of $84.79 to $101.74.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down 0.4%, at $125.51 in a 52-week range of $109.27 to $127.83.

Continental Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLR) traded down about 2.1%, at $133.61 in a 52-week range of $76.62 to $138.13. The company has posted four new 52-week highs in the past two weeks, and shares are up 70% in the past 12 months. Continental is the largest producer in the Bakken shale play.

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