U.S. Crude Oil Stocks came in up by a sharp +2.017 Million barrels to end with a total inventory of 365.122 million barrels. What is interesting is that Dow Jones had expected a drop of roughly -1 million barrels. We had been expecting only -500,000 barrels after talking with traders.
Gasoline stocks for the week fell by 762,000 barrels to end at 217.58 million barrels in inventory. Dow Jones had expected a gain of 300,000 barrels, but our conversation with traders was indicating more of a flat week.
The continued strength is in US refineries running at 89.4% capacity. Dow Jones had estimates at 88.1% and the week ago reading was 87.9%. We would have been happy with anything above last week’s refinery level.
Distillate stocks rose 297,000 barrels to 156.9 million barrels. Dow Jones was looking for a +1.2 million and we had no axe to grind there.
Oil Services HOLDRs (NYSE: OIH) popped on the news, but shares are still down 0.5% at $99.91. The United States Oil (NYSE: USO) is having a hard time getting off the floor and is down 2.5% at $34.13 this morning.
Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) is up 0.6% at $17.91 after recovering based on teh refining data.
JON C. OGG
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