Crude shoots up

Prices end higher after inventory report shows more usage of gasoline

Oil prices shot up on Wednesday, 25 February, 2009. Prices rose after energy department reported in its weekly inventory report that gasoline inventories dropped during last week. Prices also rose after OPEC spoke yesterday about another production cut in coming months.

On Wednesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for April delivery closed at $42.5/barrel (higher by $2.54 or 6.4%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Last week, crude ended higher by 3.8%.

Prices reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 68% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are lower by 1.5%. On a yearly basis, crude prices are lower by 62%.

EIA reported today that crude inventories rose by 700,000 barrels to 351.3 million during last week. Market had expected a rise of more than 2 million barrels. Total products supplied over the past four weeks, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, averaged 19.7 million barrels per day, down 0.8% from a year ago. Excluding jet fuel, total products supplied rose slightly.

EIA also reported that U.S. gasoline consumption during the past four weeks rose 1.7% from a year ago. Gasoline inventories fell by 3.4 million barrels. Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 800,000 barrels. The EIA also said in the report U.S. refineries operated at 81.4% of their operable capacity last week, down slightly from the previous week.

Prices had been sliding since past couple of months after fear gripped the US economy that US banks might be nationalized.

OPEC has been trying to cut production consistently in order to step up prices from their current low levels. As per reports during the last weekend, Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil said that OPEC is likely to reduce output in March, 2009. OPEC has already agreed to cut cartel quotas by 4.2 million barrels a day since September, equivalent to about 5% of global oil demand. The cartel is supposed to meet on 15 March at Vienna.

Against this background, March reformulated gasoline rallied 7.5% to $1.166 a gallon, while March heating oil rose 3% to $1.2439 a gallon.

March natural gas futures fell 0.5% to $4.213 per million British thermal units.

Recently, Paris based, IEA has reported that this year's global oil demand will fall by 1 million barrels a day, or 1.1%, from last year. If realized, it will be the biggest yearly drop since 1982. The IEA cited a worsening economic outlook across all regions as the reason for the weakness in oil demand.

Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.

At the MCX, crude oil for March delivery closed at Rs 2,111/barrel, higher by Rs 179 (9.2%) against previous day's close. Natural gas for February delivery closed at Rs 203.4/mmbtu, lower by Rs 2/mmbtu (0.97%).