Chuck Marvin
Crude oil futures continued their relentless upward march in Wednesday's trading session at the New York Mercantile Exchange, soaring to a new record high of $133.17 a barrel on a bullish oil inventory report from the Energy Department and a falling dollar.
Brent crude gained $3.15 to $130.99 a barrel. Reformulated gasoline rose 6 cents to $3.39 a gallon, while heating oil added 13 cents to $3.91 a gallon. Near-term natural gas added 37 cents to $11.64 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 five-year average range. Refinery utilization increased 1.3 percentage points to 87.9%, down roughly two percentage points from its five-year average, and down roughly six percentage points from where normal summertime utilization rates were before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005.
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