Energy

Crude Oil Price Dips as Inventory Climbs

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 2.4 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 465.4 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 1.9 million barrels, gasoline inventories increased by 334,000 barrels and distillate inventories rose by 263,000 barrels in the week ending June 26. For the same period, analysts polled by Platts estimated a decrease of 1.3 million barrels in crude inventories.

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 1.8 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain in the upper half of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged over 9.5 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 6.4% compared with the same period a year ago.

Saudi Arabia is expected to cut its August pricing for medium and heavy crudes to Asian markets, according to a report from Reuters. Arab Light could drop by 20 cents a barrel and Arab Heavy could drop by as much as 70 cents a barrel. Demand from Asia has slowed as refining spreads have narrowed. The already-large OPEC supply has also acted to keep pricing down. The Saudi price change could also indirectly lower refining costs in the United States and work to keep pump prices down as well.

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Before the EIA report, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for August delivery traded down more than 2% at around $58.14 a barrel. The WTI price ticked down further to around $58.00 (down about 2.5% for the day) shortly after the report was released. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $48.61 to $96.60.

Distillate inventories increased by 400,000 barrels last week and remain in the middle of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged over 3.9 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 4.1% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged more than 5 million barrels a day last week, roughly flat compared with the prior week’s production.

For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.5 million barrels a day, up by about 748,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 95% of capacity, with daily input of over 16.5 million barrels, about 1,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.763, down from $2.779 a week ago and up from $2.746 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular cost $3.672 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 0.4%, at $82.81 in a 52-week range of $82.68 to $104.76. Year to date, Exxon stock traded down about 10.4% and is down about 14.4% since early November, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down about 0.5%, at $96.02 in a 52-week range of $95.88 to $135.10. The 52-week low was posted Wednesday. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares had also dropped about 14.4% year to date and trade down about 20% since early November.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 2.6%, at $19.36 in a 52-week range of $15.61 to $38.91.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 1.8%, at $34.28 in a 52-week range of $31.51 to $57.99.

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