The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Thursday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 2.1 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 504.1 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory remains near levels not seen at this time of year in at least the past 80 years.
Wednesday evening, the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories fell by 3.3 million barrels in the week ending February 12. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 3.1 million barrels in crude inventories.
Total gasoline inventories increased by 3 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged 8.9 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 3% compared with the same period a year ago.
Benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude prices have risen by about $5 barrel since last Friday, primarily on the strength of promises by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and Qatar that they will not raise production above January levels. Iran has so far withheld a similar promise, but traders and investors remain hopeful.
Truth be told, Russia pumped an all-time high of about 10.9 million barrels a day in January, and Saudi Arabia was not far behind. None of the bunch said it planned to cut production. If, and that’s a big if, they all keep their promise, global production will still increase in 2016 by about 300,000 barrels a day, unless production is cut elsewhere.
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Before the EIA report, WTI crude for March delivery traded up about 3.5% at around $31.70 a barrel. WTI settled at $30.66 on Wednesday and slipped to around $31.10 shortly after the report’s release. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $26.05 to $65.69.
Distillate inventories increased by 1.4 million barrels last week and have now moved higher than the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged over 3.5 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 15.6% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged about 4.7 million barrels a day last week, up by about 300,000 barrels a day from the prior week.
For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.9 million barrels a day, up by 795,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 88.3% of capacity, with daily input of averaging over 15.8 million barrels, about 338,000 barrels a day above the previous week’s average.
According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $1.719, up from $1.703 a week ago and down from $1.894 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.268 on average in the United States.
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 0.2%, at $82.12 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $90.42. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock traded down about 9.8% and is down about 15% since early November of 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down about 1.2%, at $87.25 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $112.20. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 21% over the past 12 months and trade down about 27% since early November 2014.
The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 0.3%, at $8.76 in a 52-week range of $7.67 to $21.50.
The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 1% to $23.68, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $39.80.
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