US Crude Oil Inventory Grows Larger Than Ever

Total gasoline inventories increased by 500,000 barrels last week and remain above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the EIA’s measure of consumption) averaged over 8.6 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 3.5% compared with the same period a year ago.

Distillate inventories decreased by 3.8 million barrels last week and remain in the lower half of the average range. Distillate product supplied averaged 4.2 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 6.6% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged more than 4.6 million barrels a day last week, down about 100,000 barrels a day compared with the prior week’s production.

ALSO READ: Why US Crude Oil Supply Has Skyrocketed

Wednesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by a staggering 14.3 million barrels, gasoline stockpiles jumped 1.3 million barrels and distillate stocks fell by 2.7 million barrels in the week ending February 13. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 3.7 million barrels in crude inventories, a rise of 500,000 barrels in gasoline stockpiles and a decline of 2 million barrels in distillate inventories.

Before the EIA report, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for April delivery was trading down about 4.6% at around $50.38 a barrel Thursday morning. The WTI price rose slightly to around $50.90 (down about 3.5% for the day) immediately after the report was released. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $44.37 to $99.53. The price rebound was surely due to the EIA’s report on crude inventories not being as high as the API’s report. That should be cold comfort to oil traders.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.1 million barrels a day, down by 181,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 88.7% of capacity, with daily input of more than 15.4 million barrels, about 122,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.

Crude prices rose to around $55 a barrel earlier this week, but news about rising production in the United States and the report from the API on crude oil inventories may have put an end to sharp price increases, at least temporarily. The drop in refinery utilization is due to seasonal maintenance and turnaround, and it could further depress demand for crude, again temporarily. The United Steelworkers Union strike at nine large refineries has so far had little impact on refining throughput as the refiners have been able to staff the plants with trained temporary workers, according to a report at Reuters.

ALSO READ: BP Energy Outlook Shows Renewables Rising, Coal Falling

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.273, up from $2.231 a week ago and from $2.061 a month ago. Last year a gallon of regular cost $3.375 on average in the United States. The increase in pump prices moderated last week to roughly half the increase posted in the prior week.

Here is a look at how share prices for two exchange traded funds reacted to the EIA’s report.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 3.3%, at $18.62 in a 52-week range of $16.30 to $39.44.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) also traded down, about 1.2% to $36.22, in a 52-week range of $31.63 to $58.01.