API Crude Oil Inventory Will Continue to Pressure Oil Prices

Watch Out! Inventory Data and China Could Swing Crude Oil Prices

(Continued from Prior Part)

API crude oil inventory

The API (American Petroleum Institute) is scheduled to release its weekly crude oil inventory report on February 9, 2016. Last week, the US commercial crude oil inventory rose by 3.8 MMbbls (million barrels) for the week ending January 29, 2016. The API crude oil inventory rose for the third consecutive week despite the winter season.

EIA’s crude oil inventory

The EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration) is scheduled to release its weekly crude oil inventory report on February 10, 2016. The US crude oil inventory rose by 7.8 MMbbls to 502.7 MMbbls for the week ending January 29, 2016. To learn more about the nationwide crude oil inventory, read EIA Crude Oil Inventory Breaks 34-Year Record Inventory High. For more on the gasoline inventory, read US Gasoline Inventories Shake up Crude Oil and Gasoline Prices. For more on distillates, read US Distillate Inventories Fall on Low Distillate Production.

The preliminary surveys from Reuters suggest that the US crude oil inventory could rise by 3.9 MMbbls for the week ending February 5, 2016. The current US crude oil inventory is 36% more than the five-year seasonal average. Gasoline and distillate inventories are also 8% and 16% more than the five-year averages, respectively.

Impact

The catastrophic fall in oil prices impacted oil producers like Anadarko Petroleum (APC), Hess (HES), Energy XXI (EXXI), and Halcon Resources (HK). However, the rising US and global inventory and contango market benefit oil tankers like Nordic American Tankers (NAT), Teekay Tankers (TNK), Frontline (FRO), DHT Holdings (DHT), and Tsakos Energy Navigation (TNP). In the next part, we’ll discuss how the rising crude oil inventory impacts rising crude oil storage costs.

ETFs like the United States Oil Fund (USO), the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF (UCO), and the iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil Total Return Index ETN (OIL) are influenced by the rise and fall in oil prices.

Continue to Next Part

Browse this series on Market Realist:

• Part 1 - Crude Oil Market: Saudi Arabia Is Stubborn, Dictates Venezuela

• Part 3 - Crude Oil Storage Costs Rose 9 Times, US Crude Tests New Limits

• Part 4 - Gulf Coast Crude Oil Inventory Hit New Highs, Drove Storage Costs