Energy

Crude Oil Price Softens as Crude, Gasoline Stockpiles Rise

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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 2.8 million barrels last week, maintaining a total U.S. commercial crude inventory of 543.4 million barrels. The commercial crude inventory remains 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 1.3 million barrels in the week ending April 29. For the same period, analysts had estimated an increase of 1.7 million barrels in crude inventories, along with a drop of 200,000 barrels in gasoline supplies and a 100,000 barrel decline in distillates. API also reported gasoline supplies fell by 1.2 million barrels and distillate stockpiles fell by 2.6 million barrels.

Total gasoline inventories increased by 500,000 barrels last week, according to the EIA, and remain well above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied (the agency’s measure of consumption) averaged 9.5 million barrels a day for the past four weeks, up by 5.8% compared with the same period a year ago.

Speculation is at a two-year high in the crude oil spot market. According to a report at Reuters, managed money (including hedge funds and other non-market participants) now holds long positions on 791 million barrels of crude and short positions on just 128 million barrels. That is a huge bet that oil prices will rise.


How much more upside is there? Will managed money increase their long positions even more or are they satisfied with what they now have? Since the beginning of 2016, hedge funds have added nearly 195 million barrels to their long positions while cutting short positions by 235 million barrels. The resulting short squeeze was brutal, but there aren’t many short barrels left to squeeze out.

As for what’s happening in the real world with real barrels, U.S. production is down, consumption is up and demand looks strong for the coming summer. Both market fundamentals and non-market speculators have forced crude prices higher most of this year. That situation may be changing, though, as the hedgies may have overbought and now face some serious downside risk, while the supply-demand balance in the U.S. indicates that price risk is developing to the upside.

Before the EIA report, benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for June delivery traded up about 2.2% at around $44.60 a barrel and slipped to around $44.20 shortly after the report’s release. WTI crude settled at $43.65 on Tuesday. The 52-week range on June futures is $30.79 to $65.93.

Distillate inventories decreased by 1.3 million barrels last week but also remain well above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Distillate product supplied averaged over 4 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, up by 4.3% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production averaged 4.6 million barrels a day last week, down less than 100,000 barrels a day from the prior week.

For the past week, crude imports averaged 7.7 million barrels a day, up by 110,000 barrels a day compared with the previous week. Refineries were running at 89.7% of capacity, with daily input averaging 16 million barrels, about 139,000 barrels a day more than the previous week’s average.

According to AAA, the current national average pump price per gallon of regular gasoline is $2.223, up from $2.152 a week ago and up nearly 18 cents compared with the month-ago price. Last year at this time, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.62 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 0.5%, at $88.58 in a 52-week range of $66.55 to $89.96. Over the past 12 months, Exxon stock has traded down about 0.7% and is down about 14.6% since August 2014, as of Tuesday’s close.

Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) traded up about 0.4%, at $101.67 in a 52-week range of $69.58 to $109.53. As of Tuesday’s close, Chevron shares have dropped about 6.3% over the past 12 months and trade down about 24% since August 2014.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) traded up about 1.7%, at $10.90 in a 52-week range of $7.67 to $21.50.

The Market Vectors Oil Services ETF (NYSEMKT: OIH) traded down about 1% at $28.35, in a 52-week range of $20.46 to $39.55.

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