Crude Oil Price Ticks Higher of Smaller-Than-Expected Inventory Increase

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 3.5 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 507.6 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 rose by a whopping 7.1 million barrels in the week ending February 19. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 3.2 million barrels in crude inventories.

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 2.2 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, but remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged about 9.1 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 5.2% compared with the same period a year ago.

Crude oil prices have now fallen from near $34 a barrel at one point last Thursday to trade at around $30.50 a barrel early Wednesday morning. The decline came as investors and traders came to understand that a so-called production freeze is not the same thing as a production cut. Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi made the distinction abundantly clear in remarks Tuesday in Houston:

A freeze is the beginning of a process. If we can get all the major producers to agree not to add additional barrels then this high inventory we have now will probably decline in due time. This is not the same as cutting production. That’s not going to happen.

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Before the EIA report, benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for April delivery traded down about 3.2% at around $30.90 a barrel. WTI settled at $31.87 on Tuesday and inched up to around $31.20 shortly after the report’s release. The 52-week range on WTI April futures is $28.74 to $65.71.

Distillate inventories decreased by 1.7 million barrels last week but remain above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged about 3.5 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 16% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged over 4.4 million barrels a day last week, down by about 300,000 barrels a day from the prior week.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.8 million barrels a day, down by 117,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 87.3% of capacity, with daily input of averaging 15.7 million barrels, about 163,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $1.709, down a tick from $1.710 a week ago and down from $1.832 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.312 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 down about 0.9%, at $80.52 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $90.09. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock traded down about 10% and is down about 175% since early November of 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down about 0.9%, at $84.14 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $112.20. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 19% over the past 12 months and trade down about 29% since early November 2014.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 1.5%, at $8.14 in a 52-week range of $7.67 to $21.50.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 2.2% to $23.04, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $39.80.