Gasoline, distillates inventories down again

Crude oil prices were higher on Wednesday after the US Energy Information Administration released its latest figures on inventories in the United States. West Texas Intermediate crude May contracts were 27 cents higher to $59.52 per barrel by early afternoon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Despite gasoline inventories that were lower again, Nymex April gasoline declined by almost 1 cent to $1.9325 per gallon. The same was true of heating oil, which dropped just less than 1 cent to $1.6625 per gallon even though stockpiles were down more than had been expected. The price of natural gas was higher, adding 13.8 cents to $7.048 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Crude oil inventories were up by 4 million barrels in the week ending March 15, according to the EIA, a larger than expected rise to a total of 329.3 million barrels in storage. Gasoline stockpiles dropped by 3.4 million barrels to 210.5 million barrels, while distillates inventories were 1.7 million barrels lower to 118.7 million barrels stored. The American Petroleum Institute reported slightly different figures, saying that crude oil supplies were up by 5.7 million barrels in the week. It also reported, contrary to the EIA, that gasoline stockpiles gained 753,000 barrels during the week. The API said that distillates inventories did drop, but only by 168,000 barrels.

Refinery capacity use was 0.7 percent higher last week than it was the week before, with refineries working at 86.3 percent of capacity.