Energy

Crude Oil Price Dives as Gasoline Inventories Leap

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Wednesday morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories decreased by 5.1 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 482.3 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 plunged by 5.6 million barrels in the week ending January 1st. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 300,000 barrels in crude inventories.

Total gasoline inventories increased by a whopping 10.6 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and have moved into the upper half of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged 9 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, down by 3.6% compared with the same period a year ago.

Flooding earlier this week had cut off two crude oil pipelines feeding into the Phillips 66 refinery in Wood River, Illinois, about 15 miles north of St. Louis. The closures occurred late last week and halted about 350,000 barrels a day to the refinery that processes about 306,000 barrels a day. The Enbridge Ozark pipeline that transports crude from Cushing to Wood River reopened on Tuesday. Spectra Energy’s Platte pipeline reopened on Sunday.

Also last week, the first shipment of U.S. crude in 40 years left Corpus Christi bound for Europe. A second tanker is expected to depart Houston later this week.

Before the EIA report, benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for February delivery traded down about 2.4% at around $35.10 a barrel. WTI settled at $35.97 on Tuesday and dipped to around $34.70 immediately after the report’s release. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $34.48 to $65.50. The low was posted earlier Wednesday morning.

Distillate inventories increased by 6.3 million barrels last week and have moved near the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged 3.6 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 11.3% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged over 3.5 million barrels a day last week, about 9.3% less compared with the same period a year ago.

The sharp increase in distillate inventories is likely due to lower demand for heating oil due to warmer winter weather. The even steeper rise in gasoline stockpiles is a little more difficult to figure out, but, to state the obvious, it is probably a result of lower demand both from domestic users and from export customers.

For the past week, crude imports averaged over 7.5 million barrels a day, down about 382,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 92.5% of capacity, with daily input of averaging over 16.6 million barrels, about 65,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $1.999, down about 0.1% from $2.002 a week ago and down from $2.037 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.194 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 1.5%, at $76.99 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $93.45. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock traded down about 14.3% and is down about 20% since early November of 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded down about 3.2%, at $86.71 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $113.31. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 19.8% over the past 12 months and trade down about 28% since early November 2014.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded down about 3.9%, at $10.25 in a 52-week range of $10.21 to $21.50. The low was posted this morning.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 3.1% at $25.44, in a 52-week range of $25.39 to $39.80. The low was also posted this morning.

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