DTN Oil Update
Oil Futures Surged After US Crude Inventories Fell
HOUSTON (DTN) --â?¯Crude oil benchmarks NYMEX WTI and ICE Brent contracts for February delivery closed the week Friday with gains on high demand expectation after Energy Information Administration data showed a larger-than-expected fall of U.S. crude inventories last week.
At 3:00 p.m. EST, the February NYMEX WTI futures contract edged up $0.81 to $70.43 barrel (bbl), while the front-month ICE Brent futures contract advanced $0.72 to $73.98 bbl, despite thin trading activity seen in the day due to the year-end holidays.
However, bullish sentiment dominated the oil futures market after midday as the EIA confirmed on Friday that commercial crude oil inventories in the U.S. dropped by 4.2 million bbl to 416.8 million bbl in the week ended Dec. 20.
Due to the Christmas holiday, the release of the EIA's Weekly Petroleum Status Report was delayed by two days.
The draw reported by EIA was larger-than-expected as it exceeded the 3.2 million bbl fall seen by the American Petroleum Institute API on Tuesday (12/24) during the same reference week.
Crude oil throughput remained steady at 13.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in the week ended Dec. 20, compared to the previous week.
Downstream, distillate fuel stocks declined 1.7 million bbl to 116.5 million bbl. Distillate fuel oil supplies also fell to 4.3 million bpd in the week ended Dec. 20, which was 2 million bpd lower than the volume recorded last week, according to EIA data.
In the opposite direction, gasoline inventories rose 1.6 million bbl week-over-week to reach 223.7 million bbl.
January RBOB futures rose $0.0095 to $1.9553 gallon, while front-month ULSD futures edged up $0.0369 to $2.2422 gallon.
Maria Eugenia Garcia can be reached at Maria.Garcia@dtn.com
