Tuesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories fell by 7.3 million barrels in the week ending July 3. For the same period, Platts analysts estimated a decrease of 1.8 million barrels in crude inventories.
Total gasoline inventories increased by 100,000 barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain in the upper half of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged 9.6 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 6.5% compared with the same period a year ago.
The potential addition of a million barrels of Iranian crude to the world’s oil markets only had a negative effect on the price of crude for a few hours on Tuesday. Crude closed higher much to most people’s surprise. There are a couple of reasons this should not have happened. First of all, if sanctions against Iran are lifted, that is not expected to happen until December. Second, most industry watchers believe Iran has 30 million to 40 million barrels of oil in floating storage sailing in circles in the Persian Gulf. Those would be available as soon as sanctions are lifted. Both actions should depress crude prices.
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As for Iranian production, the country now produces about 2.8 million barrels a day and consumes more than half of it domestically. The remaining million barrels or so are exported, and any additions also will be exported, with most headed for Asian buyers. The four most prominent are China, India, Japan and Korea.
Before the EIA report, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for August delivery traded down nearly 1.5% at around $52.70 a barrel. The WTI price slumped to around $52.55 (down about 1.7% for the day) shortly after the report was released. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $49.69 to $94.88.
Distillate inventories increased by 3.8 million barrels last week and remain in the middle of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 2.3% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged 5.1 million barrels a day last week, about flat compared with the prior week’s production.
For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.4 million barrels a day, up by about 38,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 95.3% of capacity, with daily input of over 16.8 million barrels, about 229,000 barrels a day above the previous week’s average.
According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.776, up from $2.76 a week ago and down from $2.804 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular cost $3.605 on average in the United States.
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Here is a look at how share prices for two blue-chip stocks and two exchange traded funds reacted to this latest report.
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) traded up about 03%, at $83.32 in a 52-week range of $81.49 to $104.76. Year to date, Exxon stock traded down about 9.8%, and it is down about 13.8% since early November, as of Tuesday’s close.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down fractionally, at $95.39 in a 52-week range of $93.26 to $135.10. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have also dropped about 14.9% year to date and trade down about 20.4% since early November.
The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 0.7%, at $17.60 in a 52-week range of $15.61 to $38.30.
The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 0.7% as well, at $33.55 in a 52-week range of $31.51 to $57.99.
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