The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report this morning. US commercial crude inventories decreased by 600,000 barrels last week, bringing the total US commercial crude inventory to 371.1 million barrels, still well above the upper limit of the five-year range for this time of the year.

Total gasoline inventories rose by 3.8 million barrels last week and are now above the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied averaged more than 8.5 million barrels a day over the past four weeks — a decline of 2.8% compared with the same period a year ago.

Distillate inventories rose by 2.4 million barrels last week, but remain well below the lower limit of the average range. Distillate product supplied averaged more than 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down 6.9% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production totaled just over 4.9 million barrels a day last week, up slightly compared with the prior week.

The American Petroleum Institute reported an inventory draw of 1.2 million barrels in crude supplies last week. Platts estimated a drawdown of 2 million barrels in crude inventories for last week, with a build of 250,000 barrels in gasoline supplies and a rise of 350,000 million barrels in distillate supplies. Bloomberg estimated a drop of 1.75 million barrels in crude stocks.

Crude prices were higher before the EIA report at $91.06 a barrel and rose slightly following the report. The political battle over the U.S. budget deficit is at least equally responsible for fluctuations in crude prices, and today is not a particularly hopeful day for a deal.

For the past week, crude imports averaged over 8 million barrels a day, an decrease of about 374,000 barrels a day from the previous week. Refineries were running at 90.3% of capacity, with daily input of 15.3 million barrels a day, about 266,000 barrels a day less than the previous week.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) is down 0.5% at $33.02 in a 52-week range of $29.02 to $42.30.

The United States Gasoline ETF (NYSEMKT: UGA) is down 1.1% at $58.50. The 52-week range is $45.13 to $62.13.

Paul Ausick

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