EIA stock draw fails to support crude prices

04 August 2010 16:27  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS)--Crude oil rose by about 25 cents on Wednesday, briefly recouping some of the earlier losses, when this week’s US stock figures showed a larger-than-expected draw in crude, although this was tempered by an unexpected build in gasoline and a larger-than-anticipated build in distillates.

September NYMEX light sweet crude futures rose from around $82.20/bbl before the figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) were published to around $82.45/bbl, a loss of 10 cents from the previous close of $82.55/bbl and well short of the earlier high of $82.85/bbl.

However, it then lost ground again and at 14:40 GMT, September NYMEX crude was trading around $82.15/bbl, down 40 cents from the previous close.

On the ICE futures exchange, September Brent also briefly gained ground, rising from around $82.20/bbl before the figures were published to around $82.40/bbl.

At 14:40 GMT, September Brent was trading around $82.10/bbl, down 58 cents from the previous close of $82.68/bbl.

Analysts’ predictions for this week’s US stock figures were that they would show draws in crude stocks of about 1.4m bbl and in gasoline of around 400,000 bbl, but a build in distillates of around 1.2m bbl.

The figures from the American Petroleum Institute (API) were published late on 3 August.

US stocks (million bbl)	w/e 30.08.10
	EIA	Change	API	Change
Crude	358.0	-2.8	354.9	-0.8
Gasoline	223.0	+0.7	225.0	+2.3
RFG	1.5	-0.2	1.9	-0.2
Distillate	169.7	+2.2	163.4	+1.1
Heating Oil	50.1	+1.0	48.6	+0.5
Jet Kerosene	48.7	+0.4	45.8	-0.2

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By: Tony Dillon
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