The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 1.3 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 523.2 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory stands at historically high levels for this time of year, according to the EIA.

Tuesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by 1.5 million barrels in the week ending March 11. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 3.3 million barrels in crude inventories. API also reported gasoline supplies fell by 1.2 million barrels and distillate stockpiles fell by 830,000 barrels.

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 700,000 barrels last week, according to the EIA, yet remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged 9.4 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 6.4% compared with the same period a year ago.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil reversed two days of losses Wednesday morning following the announcement that oil-producing countries, including OPEC members and Russia, plan to meet next month to set production limits. As we’ve pointed out many times, the limit is apparently going to be set at January production levels, which reached an all-time high in Russia and more than 10 million barrels a day for Saudi Arabia. Iran has already said that it will continue to raise production, which leads us to believe that these producing nations are not likely to reach a deal that would actually lower their own production.

While OPEC and the International Energy Agency (IEA) both expect production to fall this year, both believe that the decline will come at the expense of U.S. onshore producers. Whether that happens depends heavily on how high the price rises. At $40 to $45 a barrel, U.S. producers could restart pumping by completing already drilled wells that can be brought into production quickly, provided the companies have enough cash to rev up production again. It’s not a sure thing, but in our view the odds favor the shale producers.

At current production rates, supply exceeds demand by about 2 million barrels a day. U.S. production is forecast to decline by less than 1 million barrels a day. How this redresses the demand-supply imbalance in any meaningful way is difficult to understand.

Last week’s rise in crude prices may have been due as much to short covering as to any fundamental change in the industry. Short contracts on WTI reached a peak in mid-February and have fallen every week since as speculators dump their short futures contracts. On Friday Goldman Sachs warned that the rally may be “premature,” noting that low prices have to be maintained for a long enough time to cause serious pain. Otherwise, an early price rally will be “self-defeating,” especially with stockpiles so high. Goldman said it say oil prices improving in 2017.

Before the EIA report, WTI crude for April delivery traded up about 3.3% at around $37.55 a barrel. WTI settled at $36.34 on Tuesday and rose to around $37.75 shortly after the report’s release. The 52-week range on WTI April futures is $28.74 to $65.71.

Distillate inventories decreased by 1.1 million barrels again last week but remain above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged about 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 7.7% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged over 4.8 million barrels a day last week, up by about 100,000 barrels a day from the prior week.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.7 million barrels a day, down by 355,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 89% of capacity, with daily input of averaging 16 million barrels, about 85,000 barrels a day above the previous week’s average. This marks the second week of rising refinery throughput.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $1.956, up from $1.822 a week ago and up more than 25 cents compared with the month-ago price. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.424 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 0.8%, at $82.18 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $90.09. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock traded down about 3% and is down about 20% since August 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 0.1%, at $94.34 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $112.20. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 8.7% over the past 12 months and trade down about 29% since August 2014.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 3.4%, at $10.03 in a 52-week range of $7.67 to $21.50.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded up about 0.9% to $26.81, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $39.80.

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