The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories decreased by 1.7 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 453.6 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory remains near levels not seen at this time of year in at least the past 80 years.

Tuesday evening, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories fell by 847,000 barrels in the week ending August 7. For the same period, analysts surveyed by Platts had estimated a decrease of 1.9 million barrels in crude inventories. The API also reported that gasoline inventories increased by 117,000 barrels and that distillate stockpiles rose by 2.2 million barrels.

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 1.3 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain in the middle of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged over 9.6 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 6.6% compared with the same period a year ago.

Recent oil market status reports from OPEC, the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the EIA’s own update to its Short-Term Energy Outlook indicate that supply continues to exceed demand, but that demand is growing globally and supply is beginning to slow in the United States, particularly. OPEC supply remains high and could rise even more, depending on whether the Iran nuclear agreement is approved and sanctions against Iran are lifted.

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Crude oil prices have fallen to 52-week lows recently and have reached a level not seen since March, falling below $43 a barrel for benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude Wednesday morning.

Before the EIA report, WTI crude for September delivery traded up about 1.1% at around $43.50 a barrel. The WTI price slipped to around $43.20, up about 0.5% on the day, shortly after the report was released. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $42.69 to $93.12.

Distillate inventories increased by 3 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 5.4% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged over 5.1 million barrels a day last week, about 100,000 barrels a day above the prior week’s production.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.6 million barrels a day, up by about 393,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 96.1% of capacity, with daily input of over 17 million barrels, about 46,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.586, down from $2.63 a week ago and from $2.768 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular cost $3.474 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 down about 0.3%, at $77.05 in a 52-week range of $76.62 to $100.31. Year to date, Exxon stock traded down about 16.7% and is down about 20% since early November, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down about 0.7%, at $85.21 in a 52-week range of $82.89 to $129.53. The low was posted Wednesday morning. As Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares also had dropped about 24.2% year to date and traded down about 29% since early November.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 0.6%, at $14.41 in a 52-week range of $14.36 to $36.17. The low was posted Wednesday morning.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 0.8%, at $31.70 in a 52-week range of $30.14 to $55.43.

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