Energy Prospectus

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude oil inventories unexpectedly rose by 1.31 million barrels in the week ended May 13. Market analysts' expected a crude-stock decline of 2.833 million barrels, while the American Petroleum Institute late Tuesday reported a supply decrease of 1.2 million barrels. [Remember, these weekly numbers are SWAGs at best.]

Supplies at Cushing, Oklahoma, the key delivery point for Nymex crude, rose by 0.461 million barrels last week, the EIA said. Total U.S. crude oil inventories stood at 540 million barrels as of last week, which the EIA considered to be “historically high levels for this time of year”.

The report also showed
> Gasoline inventories decreased by 2.496 million barrels, compared to expectations for a drop of 0.15 million barrels
> Distillate stockpiles fell by 3.17 million barrels, compared to forecasts for a 0.642 million decline.

My take is that oil prices will not respond too much to this report since the last two points are quite bullish, showing the summer spike in demand for refined products has started. A lot of gasoline is burned up over the Memorial Day weekend.

Crude oil prices dipped right after the EIA report came out, but they have rebounded and the front month WTI contract is now up $0.40/bbl.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose unexpectedly last week even as gasoline and distillate inventories fell more than expected, data from the Energy Information Administration showed on Wednesday.

Crude inventories rose 1.3 million barrels in the week to May 13, compared with analysts' expectations for a decrease of 2.8 million barrels and a 1.1 million-barrel drawdown reported on Tuesday by a trade group, the American Petroleum Institute.

"On the crude oil front, the EIA report was disappointing at best given the surprise build," said Dominick Chirichella, senior partner at the Energy Management Institute in New York.

"Both PADD 2 (the Midwest) and Cushing built in an area that should have been most impacted by the Canadian wildfires," he said, referring to the blaze began in early May and has cut Canadian oil output by a million barrels per day.

U.S. crude imports , however, still rose last week by 22,000 bpd, while stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for crude futures rose 461,000 barrels, hitting a fresh record high, the data showed.

U.S. crude futures (CLc1) turned negative after the report, falling 1 cent to $48.30 a barrel at 11:18 a.m. EDT. Brent crude (LCOc1) fell 4 cents a barrel to $49.24.

Refinery crude runs rose 192,000 bpd and utilization rates increased 1.4 percentage points to 90.5 percent of total capacity.

Gasoline stocks fell 2.5 million barrels, compared forecasts for a 150,000-barrel drop.

Distillate stockpiles , which include diesel and heating oil, fell 3.2 million barrels, versus expectations for a 642,000-barrel drop, the EIA data showed.

The drawdown of products lent counterbalanced to the crude build, said Chris Jarvis, analyst at Caprock Risk Management in Frederick, Maryland.

"Overall, the strength in products demand, which is now over 20 million barrels per day, and the seasonality heading into peak driving season should give a bullish bias to today’s data points," Jarvis said

Oil is up slightly right now, but virtually all energy stocks are taking a hit? Any idea why?

like to hear dan's story on this, also, but my take is---

fed is threatening to raise interest rates in june
that caused the dollar to pop
that caused oil to drop

prior to that some think buyers were holding off E&Ps to see what fed was gonna do.

imo, all this is noise in the bigger picture. volume has been mostly low indicating a lack of buyers

Today there are more sellers than buyers. It is that simple.

Oil finished the day down slightly, my SWAG is in response to the rising U.S. dollar.

Fundamental forces are hard at work pushing oil supply & demand back into balance.