Crude Oil Stays Pumped
05/21/08 - 02:17 PM EDT
Chuck Marvin
Crude futures are on a tear in Wednesday's trading session at the New York Mercantile Exchange, soaring to an intraday record of more than $132 on a bullish oil inventory report from the Energy Department and a falling dollar.
West Texas crude for July delivery reached another new intraday high, trading up $3.28 at $132.26 a barrel, while Brent crude was trading at $132.05 a barrel. Near-term natural gas was adding 26 cents to $11.77 per million British thermal units. The Energy Information Administration's petroleum report for the week ending May 16 showed a large draw in oil stores that missed analyst forecasts by wide margins. Crude stores fell 5.3 million barrels during the week. Analysts were expecting a 300,000 barrel build in oil stores, according to a Bloomberg survey. Gasoline stores also surprised the market, falling 755,000 gallons during the week against a prior analyst consensus of a 250,000 build. Distillate inventories rose by 730,000 barrels, 700,000 barrels fewer than analysts were expecting. Total U.S. crude stores, excluding the Strategic Oil Reserve, were 320.4 million barrels. This is in the middle of the average range for this time of year, according to the EIA report. Gasoline stores are in the lower end of their 5-year average range. Refinery utilization increased 1.3 percentage points to 87.9%, down roughly 2 percentage points from its 5-year average, and down roughly 6 percentage points from where normal summertime utilization rates were before Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast in 2005.
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