Crude falls in wake of unexpected US stock figures

12 March 2008 15:09  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS news)--The crude oil markets fell by about $1.40 on Wednesday when this week’s US stock figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed a much larger than expected build on crude stocks.

 

April NYMEX light sweet crude futures fell from around $108.50 before the figures were published to hit a low of $107.09/bbl, a loss of $1.66 from Tuesday’s close.

 

However, it then regained a little ground and at 16.00 GMT, April NYMEX crude was trading around $107.70, down $1.05 from Tuesday’s close of $108.75.

 

On London’s ICE Futures, April Brent also lost ground, falling from around $105.00 before the figures were published to hit a low of $104.00. At 16.00 GMT, April Brent was trading around $104.50, down 75 cents from Tuesday’s close of $105.25.

 

Analysts’ predictions for this week’s US stock figures were that they would show builds on crude stocks of about 1.7m bbl and on gasoline of around 300,000 bbl but a draw on distillate of around 1.9m bbl.

U.S Stocks (million bbl)	w/e 07.03.08
	EIA	Change	API	Change
Crude	311.6	+6.2	305.2	-0.5
Gasoline	236.0	+1.7	219.3	-3.7
RFG	1.1	+0.2	1.0	n/c
Distillate	116.4	-1.2	114.3	-2.7
Heating Oil	30.1	-1.7	30.4	-1.4
Kerosene	38.9	-0.4	38.5	-0.7

By: Tony Dillon
+44 20 8652 3214

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