Energy
Crude Oil Price Tumbles on Massive Inventory Build
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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 a whopping 10.4 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 518 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 9.9 million barrels in the week ending February 26. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 2.6 million barrels in crude inventories.
Total gasoline inventories decreased by 1.5 million barrels last week, according to the EIA, but remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged about 9.3 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 6.9% compared with the same period a year ago.
Crude oil gained about $3 a barrel over the past week as a result of continuing discussions among many producing nations for a production cap. A week or two ago, the cap was called a freeze and generated an equal amount of enthusiasm until people started counting barrels.
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