Petroleum futures contracts were pushing up against session lows heading into Thursday afternoon following release of federal data showing strong builds in U.S. gasoline and distillate inventories.
While the Energy Information Administration data showed a sharp drop in oil supplies, crude prices were also falling in the report's wake.
The NYMEX July contract for West Texas Intermediate crude was down 90cts to $78.33/bbl at about 11:40 a.m. ET, about 10cts off earlier lows. The August contract was 85cts lower to $77.95/bbl.
Brent crude was seeing even deeper losses, with the July contract falling 99cts to $82.61/bbl and August prices down 91cts to $82.52/bbl.
Refined product contracts are on track for a second day of deep losses, with the June NYMEX RBOB contract shedding 5.06cts to $2.4138/gal, about a cent off earlier lows. The July contract was 4.97cts in the red to $2.4102/gal.
ULSD losses were in similar territory, with the June contract moving 5.04cts lower to $2.3866/gal, a new low for the session, while July prices lost 4.77cts to $2.4082/gal.
EIA on Thursday reported U.S. gasoline inventories rose by 2 million bbl during the week ending Friday, while distillate supplies increased by 2.5 million bbl. The increases came as EIA's measurement of gasoline demand showed a decline of about 160,000 b/d from the previous week. While the 9.148 million b/d implied demand figure was about 50,000 b/d higher than the same period last year, that is likely due to the Memorial Day holiday weekend falling earlier this year, skewing year-to-year comparisons. Distillate demand was about 90,000 b/d lower than the previous week and about 150,000 b/d higher than the same week in 2023.
The build in refined products also reflects increased activity at U.S. refineries, with overall utilization during the week rising to 94.3%, a gain of 2.5 percentage points. The increased activity also led to a 4.2 million bbl decline in U.S. crude oil inventories.
The weaker futures were pulling down prices for gasoline and diesel in spot markets around the country Thursday. While most products and markets were seeing decreases close to the NYMEX losses, June CARBOB in Los Angeles and San Francisco were seeing a sharper pullback, with San Francisco prices off about 10cts/gal while LA prices were shedding about 6cts.
This content was created by Oil Price Information Service, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. OPIS is run independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
--Reporting by Steve Cronin, scronin@opisnet.com; Editing by Michael Kelly, mkelly@opisnet.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-30-24 1236ET
