Crude Price Rises after EIA Inventory Report

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its weekly petroleum status report this morning. U.S. commercial crude inventories increased by 600,000 barrels last week, bringing the total U.S. commercial crude inventory to 372.2 million barrels, still well above the upper limit of the five-year range for this time of the year.

Total gasoline inventories decreased by 800,000 barrels last week and remain in the upper limit of the five-year average range. Total motor gasoline supplied averaged about 8.4 million barrels a day over the past four weeks - a rise of about 4.4% compared with the same period a year ago.

Distillate inventories decreased by 3.7 million barrels last week and are below the lower limit of the average range. Distillate product supplied averaged 3.7 million barrels a day over the past four weeks, down 1.4% when compared with the same period last year. Distillate production totaled 4.4 million barrels a day last week, down about 100,000 barrels a day when compared with the prior week.

The American Petroleum Institute reported an inventory decrease of 2.3 barrels in crude supplies last week. Platts estimated a build of 2.5 million barrels in crude inventories for last week. Dow Jones estimates called for a crude inventory build of 2.4 million barrels, an decrease of 400,000 barrels in gasoline supplies and a drop of 2 million barrels in distillate supplies.

Crude prices were about 0.2% higher before the EIA report at $97.70 a barrel and rose slightly to around $97.79 following the report. The lower-than-expected build in crude inventories should push prices higher today.

For the past week, crude imports averaged more than 7.5 million barrels a day, a decrease of about 56,000 barrels a day from the previous week. Refineries were running at 83.8% of capacity, with daily input of 14.3 million barrels a day, about 121,000 barrels a day less than the previous week.

The United States Oil ETF (NYSEMKT: USO) is up 0.3% at $35.39 in a 52-week range of $29.02 to $42.30.

The United States Gasoline ETF (NYSEMKT: UGA) is up 0.7% at $64.49, a new 52-week high. The prior 52-week range was $45.13 to $64.43.

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