Crude Inventories Dampen Energy Prices (USO, OIL)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

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The weekly data from the Department of Energy is showing some gains in crude oil again and some weaker-than- expected gasoline draws.  Weekly crude oil inventories went up by 1.67 million barrels to 349.1 million, while we were expecting a gain of only about 500,000 to 600,000 barrels.  The drop in gasoline inventories came to -218,000 to 212.85 million barrels, We were expecting a draw down by another -1 million barrels.

The distillates came in at -1.136 million to 161.48 million barrels.

Refining capacity came in down another 0.1% at 84.5%.  That is a tad better than the Dow Jones estimates projecting 84.2%, but we expect this number to continue sliding south based on all of the refinery earnings and what the integrated oil companies have been saying about refineries.

The United States Oil (NYSE: USO) ETF is down 1.3% at $37.45 and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (NYSE: OIL) is down 1.3% at $24.71.  NYMEX WTI Crude is down $1.00 per barrel at $70.42 after the report.

JON C. OGG
August 5, 2009

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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