Crude adds little gains

Prices register substantial weekly gains

Crude oil prices ended marginally higher on Friday, 18 June 2010 at Nymex. Prices rose in tandem with rising US stocks.



On Friday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for July delivery closed at $77.18/barrel (higher by $0.39 or 0.5%). For the week, prices gained 4.6%.

For the month of May, crude shed 14%. It was the biggest monthly drop for crude since December 2008. For the month of April, crude rose 2.8%. For the first quarter of this year, crude rose by 5.5%. Year to date, crude is higher by 9.1%.

US stocks traded flat in the early part of the session today but ultimately managed to end modestly higher.

During the week, in the weekly inventory report, the EIA reported an increase of 1.7 million barrels in oil inventories in the week ended 11 June. Market expected a decrease of around 1.75 million barrels. Gasoline inventories decreased by 600,000 barrels compared with expectations of an increase around 640,000 barrels. Stocks of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, increased by 1.8 million barrels. Refineries operated at 87.9% of their capacity on the week, 1.2% lower than a week earlier.

On Friday, reformulated gasoline for July delivery also gave ground, declining 2 cents, or 0.8%, to $2.14 a gallon. Gasoline futures have gained nearly 4.4% on the week.

Also on Friday, July natural gas retreated 16 cents, or 3.2%, to $4.99 per million British thermal units. On the week, however, natural gas futures added 4.3%, contrasting with small losses on the prior week.

Crude ended FY 2009 higher by 78%, the highest yearly gain since 1999. It reached a high of $82 earlier in October 2009 and hit a low of $33.98 on 12 February 2009. Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.