Tuesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories fell by 1.9 million barrels in the week ending July 24th. For the same period analysts had estimated a decrease of 700,000 barrels in crude inventories.
Total gasoline inventories decreased by 400,000 barrels last week according to the EIA, and have moved into the middle of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged over 9.5 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 6.2% compared with the same period a year ago.
Crude oil prices have dropped more than 20% since the beginning of July as investors and traders try to figure out when (if?) the supply glut is ending or ever will end. The number of U.S. land-based drilling rigs rose last week and though onshore production is decreasing, the decline is slim and production could be turning upward again.
Later today the Federal Reserve’s open market committee will end its two-day meeting with an announcement on interest rates. There is little expectation for a rise, but tea-leaf readers will be looking for hints that a boost is coming sooner rather than later. When the Fed finally does commit to raising interest rates the dollar is most likely to strengthen putting more pressure on commodities like oil that are priced in dollars.
Before the EIA report, WTI crude for September delivery traded down about 0.6% at around $47.70 a barrel. The WTI price jumped to around $48.10 shortly after the report was released. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $46.68 to $93.65.
Distillate inventories increased by 2.6 million barrels last week and remain in the middle of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged over 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 3.6% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged 5.1 million barrels a day last week, again about flat compared with the prior week’s production.
For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.5 million barrels a day, down by about 396,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 95.1% of capacity, with daily input of about 16.8 million barrels, about 108,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.
According to AAA, today’s national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.686, down from $2.746 a week ago and down from $2.773 a month ago. Last year at this time a gallon of regular cost $3.515 on average in the U.S.
Here’s a look at how share prices for two blue-chip stocks and two ETFs are reacting to today’s report.
Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) traded up about 0.4% at $82.85 in a 52-week range of $78.97 to $104.15. Year-to-date Exxon stock traded down about 10.4% and is down about 14.3% since early November as of Tuesday’s close.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 0.1% at $92.51 in a 52-week range of $88.74 to $133.69. As of last night’s close, Chevron shares have also dropped about 17.7% year-to-date and trade down about 23% since early November.
The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 1.6% at $16.12 in a 52-week range of $15.61 to $37.68.
The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded up about 1.8% at $32.14 in a 52-week range of $30.33 to $56.40.
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