Second Week of Oil Inventory Declines Running ETFs (USO, OIL)

It looks like we are seeing the second week of draws in crude oil and oil products.  The Department of Energy is confirming data from the EIA last night showing a second week of inventory declines after weeks and weeks of build-ups.  This is lending strength to the United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL).

This last week’s crude oil stocks fell by 2.105 million barrels down to just over 368.5 million barrels.  We had a rough estimate that oil analysts were expecting a drop of 600,000 or slightly more.

The biggest drop came in gasoline inventories with a drop of nearly 4.4 million barrels to just over 203.9 million barrels.  We were looking for a draw of more than 1 million, but nowhere near the 4.4 million reported.

We saw a rise of 700,000 barrels in distillates to an inventory of 148.1 million barrels.

The Uinited States Oil ETF (NYSE: USO) is up 2.8% at $33.71 and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) is up 2.7% at $22.12.  This has the USO at levels that could challenge the January highs and the “OIL” ETF is in the same boat.

JON C. OGG
MAY 20, 2009