EIA weekly petroleum report showed inventory gains across the board.
Analysts had expected much smaller builds in CRUDE than the actuals, and had anticipated drops in both gasoline and distillate inventories - neither of which came to fruition. (Who are these "analysts" anyways - not even CLOSE, guys!)
- CRUDE: inventories jumped 5 million barrels. (Expectation was a build of 1.9 million barrels)
- Gasoline: inventories jumped 1.2 million barrels, while the EIA showed a drop in consumption of 1.3%. (Analysts had anticipated a 900K barrel drop)
- Distillates: inventories were up 400K barrels. Both production and consumption levels dropped for distillates. (Analysts had antipated a 1.2 million barrel drop)
Retail gasoline prices in the US have been trending downward big time, spurred on by the drop in CRUDE prices, as well as weakening demand. The reported average for last week was 3.41/gal in September which is almost 30 cents below the average price 4 months ago. AAA is reporting that the current average gasoline price is $3.267 - a little over 8 cents a gallon cheaper than this time last year.
Lower global demand, high supply, and a bleak global economic outlook (we're looking at you Europe) dropped Brent Crude to lows we havent seen in years - September was the first time Brent traded under $100/bbl in 2 years, and last week saw Brent hit $92, close to a 27 month low.
WTI is trading down as well, having broken through several resistance levels, and hit $86.20 after the EIA report hit this morning. (At the moment its -1.53 to 87.32 on the electronics)
The NYMEX is trending down today again, currently ULSD is down over 3 cents (-.0326 to 2.5747) and RBOB is down over 4. (-.0466 to 2.3217)
Stay Tuned!
