Crude Oil Price Bounces Higher on Lower Gasoline Supplies

Tuesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by a 5.5 million barrels, gasoline inventories rose by 1.1 million barrels and distillate inventories jumped by 1.7 million barrels in the week ending April 17. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 2.9 million barrels in crude inventories and a drop of 700,000 barrels in gasoline stockpiles.

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 2.1 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, but remain above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged over 9 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 4% compared with the same period a year ago.

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Crude oil for June delivery had slipped from a low of around $59 a barrel last Thursday to a low of around $55.75 a barrel early Wednesday morning. The price of crude turned higher later in the morning and the reported rise in the crude inventory was offset in investors’ minds by a drop in the gasoline inventory.

Before the EIA report, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for June delivery was trading down about 0.6% at around $56.30 a barrel Wednesday morning. The WTI price bounced higher to around $56.70 (up about 0.2% for the day) immediately after the report was released. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $45.93 to $98.22.

Distillate inventories increased by 400,000 barrels last week and remained in the middle of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged over 3.9 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 0.2% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged about 4.8 million barrels a day last week, down about 200,000 barrels a day compared with the prior week’s production.

For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.8 million barrels a day, up by 617,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 91.2% of capacity, with daily input of about 16 million barrels, about 230,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.479, up from $2.392 a week ago and $2.424 a month ago. Last year a gallon of regular cost $3.667 on average in the United States.

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

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 0.3%, at $19.52 in a 52-week range of $15.61 to $39.44.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded up about 0.9%, at $36.82 in a 52-week range of $31.51 to $58.01.