Oil tumbles 3.4% Wednesday
Crude oil prices continued to slide Wednesday, falling 3.4% or $2.13 to $60.73, after the U.S. Energy Information Administration released this week’s inventory numbers, showing that crude oil inventories declined less than expected.
The U.S. EIA reports that in the week ending July 3, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, decreased by 2.9 million barrels from the previous week.
“At 347.3 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are above the upper boundary of the average range for this time of year,” says the EIA.
According to MarketWatch, analysts surveyed by Platts had expected a decline of 3.2 million barrels.
Meanwhile, total motor gasoline inventories increased by 1.9 million barrels last week, and are in the upper half of the average range, and distillate fuel inventories increased by 3.7 million barrels. Total commercial petroleum inventories climbed by 5.1 million barrels last week.
MarketWatch notes that analysts surveyed by Platts had expected a buildup of 900,000 in gasoline and 1.7 million barrels in distillate.
In response to a post on the Horizons BetaPro NYMEX Crude Oil Bear Plus ETF Bullboard entitled “Wow!!! EIA says increase of 5.1MM barrels!”, Barolo12 said: “and this coming at the start of the traditional peak useage period for finished products. People are vacationing in their back yards not going on the road. This is great news for HOD holders. Based on the news coming out these days (more bad news, not less bad news) I don't see the down trend for the POO stopping anytime soon[sic].”
