Energy

Crude Oil Bounces Higher Despite Big Inventory Build

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report Thursday morning, a day later than usual due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observance. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 4 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 486.5 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory remains near levels not seen at this time of year in at least the past 80 years.

Wednesday evening the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported that crude inventories rose by 4.6 million barrels in the week ending January 15. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 2.9 million barrels in crude inventories.

Total gasoline inventories increased by 4.6 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, and have moved well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged 8.8 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, down by 2.8% compared with the same period a year ago.

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil traded dropped more than 11% last week and is down another $1.50 a barrel or so since Monday’s high. Many analysts and ratings firms already have lowered their 2016 price targets for a barrel of crude to below $40 a barrel, indicating that there is not much reason to expect an upturn in crude prices. Right now, anything north of $30 probably looks good to U.S. producers.

Before the EIA report, WTI crude for March delivery traded up about 0.2% at around $28.40 a barrel. WTI settled at $28.35 on Wednesday and bounced to around $28.70 shortly after the report’s release. The 52-week range on WTI futures is $27.56 to $65.69.


Distillate inventories decreased by a million barrels last week but remain near the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged about 3.3 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down by 15.4% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged about 4.6 million barrels a day last week.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.8 million barrels a day, down about 409,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 90.6% of capacity, with daily input of averaging 16.2 million barrels, about 223,000 barrels a day below the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $1.858, down about 4% from $1.937 a week ago and from $1.998 a month ago. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.048 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 up about 1%, at $74.00 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $93.45. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock traded down about 19.6% and is down about 23.6% since early November of 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 2.3%, at $80.76 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $112.93. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 25.6% over the past 12 months and trade down about 32.9% since early November 2014.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 2.6%, at $8.41 in a 52-week range of $7.92 to $21.50.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded up nearly 3% to $21.97, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $39.80.

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