Financial Options

The weekly oil report from the US Energy Department showed a big increase in total commercial petroleum stocks, including increases in crude oil and all the major refined products except propane, which is used heavily for heating in the rural Midwest which just experienced a cold snap. Other tidbits from the report included a substantial drop in refinery activity and continued drops year-to-year in gasoline consumption despite a price drop of 39% from this time last year. The indication is that at least until we see less economic uncertainty American consumers are continuing to drive less and conserve in other ways, a situation which is compounded by the minor bounce back in gasoline prices which have risen for three consecutive weeks. Bad news for oil price bulls.

US Petroleum Supplies and Refining At a Glance

• Total Petroleum Inventories: Up 11.8 million barrels
• Crude Oil Inventories: Up 6.1million barrels
• Gasoline Inventories: Up 6.5 million barrels
• Distillate Fuels Inventories: Up 800,000 barrels
• Propane/propylene inventories: Down 3.1 million barrels
• Refinery Crude Inputs: 14.1 million barrels/day
• Change: Down 441,000 barrels/day
• Refinery Activity: 83.3%

US Petroleum Demand At a Glance
Compared to Same 4-Week Period Last Year

• Total Products Supplied: Down 4.7%
• Gasoline: Down 1.6%
• Distillate Fuel: Down 2.6%
• Jet Fuel: Down 13.8%

The good news for oil price bulls (and bad news for consumers) is that oil markets have returned at least for the moment to last year's pattern of shrugging off any news that would be negative for prices. Prices remain above $42/barrel despite the report, giving back only a bit of the last two day's gains. Still this is nowhere near the top of the bubble market reaction of going up on good news and up just as much on bad news.

Oil Report and This Week in Petroleum - January 22, 2009 [PDF]

Full current report with data tables [PDF]