NYMEX crude plunges $1.64 on big US stock builds

06 February 2008 15:55  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--The crude oil markets fell by about $1.70 on Wednesday when this week’s US stock figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed not only much larger than anticipated builds on both crude and gasoline but also unexpected builds on distillate and heating oil.

Gasoline stocks are now at the highest level since February 1994.

March NYMEX light sweet crude futures fell from around $88.50 before the figures were published to hit a low of $86.77/bbl, a loss of $1.64 from Tuesday’s close.

However, it then regained a little ground and at 15:45 GMT, March NYMEX crude was trading around $87.10, down $1.31 from Tuesday’s close of $88.41.

On ICE Futures, March Brent also lost ground, falling from around $89.10 before the figures were published to hit a low of $87.58.

At 15:45 GMT, March Brent was trading around $87.95, down 87 cents from Tuesday’s close of $88.82.

Analysts’ predictions for this week’s US stock figures were that they would show builds on crude stocks of about 2.6m bbl and on gasoline of around 2.0m bbl, but a draw on distillate of around 1.9m bbl.

US stocks(million bbl)	w/e 1.2.08
	EIA	Change	API	Change
Crude	300.0	+7.0	302.2	+7.7
Gasoline	227.5	+3.6	225.2	+5.6
RFG	1.4	+0.3	1.1	n/c
Distillate	127.1	+0.1	129.3	-2.0
Heating oil	36.1	+0.3	39.62	-0.4
Kerosene	41.2	+0.6	41.8	n/c

By: Tony Dillon
+44 20 8652 3214

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