The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories decreased by 3.9 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 487 million barrels. The inventory remains at its highest level for this time of year in at least 80 years.

Tuesday evening, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories fell by 1.5 million barrels in the week ending May 1. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 1.5 million barrels in crude inventories and a rise of 900,000 barrels in gasoline stockpiles.

Total gasoline inventories increased by 400,000 barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged 9 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 3.9% compared with the same period a year ago.

The price for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose above $62 Wednesday morning, its highest level since last November. Analysts are scrambling to raise their annual estimates for the price of crude from the $30-a-barrel range to the $60-a-barrel level. Many have been surprised at how quickly the U.S. onshore producers have been able to reduce production as a response to the low prices. Once the price gets to around $65 a barrel and remains in that neighborhood for a while, people likely will be equally amazed at how quickly U.S. production can increase.

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Geopolitical news has been light in the past week. Libyan supply has been cut off again. The country was producing about half a million barrels a day, the equivalent of about 0.5% of the world’s daily demand. Combined with lower production from the North Sea and Mexico, however, this shook traders up and raised the bidding on barrels.

The fighting continues in Yemen, a country that produces even less of the world’s oil, but one that is situated at an important shipping point for Saudi oil.

The Saudis have been dipping into their sovereign wealth fund of some $700 billion to make ends meet while crude prices have been low. The Saudis can probably produce a barrel of crude for an average of less than $10 a barrel, but the issue is the sale price, not production costs, which are lower in Saudi Arabia than just about anywhere else on earth. Half the kingdom’s gross domestic product, about 80% of the national budget and 85% of its export earnings, come from sales of crude. The cash to pay the bills has to come from somewhere.

Before the EIA report, WTI crude for June delivery traded up about 2.6% at around $61.95 a barrel. The WTI price bounced higher to around $62.50 (up about 3.5% 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 1.5 million barrels last week and remain in the middle of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged 3.9 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 4.3% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged 5 million barrels a day last week, up about 200,000 barrels a day compared with the prior week’s production.

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For the past week, crude imports averaged over 6.5 million barrels a day, down by 905,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 93% of capacity, with daily input of more than 16.3 million barrels, about 247,000 barrels a day above the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.638, up from $2.563 a week ago and from $2.388 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular cost $3.667 on average in the United States.

Here is a look at how share prices for two blue-chip stocks and two exchange traded funds react to this latest report.

Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) traded up about 0.4%, at $89.01 in a 52-week range of $82.68 to $104.76. Year to date, Exxon stock traded up a scant 0.6%, and down about 8% since early November, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 0.6%, at $108.59 in a 52-week range of $98.88 to $135.10. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 3.7% year to date, and they trade down about 9% since early November.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 2.5%, at $21.30 in a 52-week range of $15.61 to $39.44.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded up about 1.3%, at $39.38 in a 52-week range of $31.51 to $58.01.

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