BLBG:WTI Crude Trades Near One-Month High as Cushing Stockpiles Drop
WTI Crude Trades Near One-Month High as Cushing Stockpiles Drop
“There was a mildly positive set of numbers from the EIA with a bit of a reduction in the Cushing inventories,” said Ric Spooner, a chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney who predicts WTI will face selling pressure at about $98. “People are also encouraged to see refinery capacity picking up as we start to head into the driving season.”
WTI for June delivery was at $96.31 a barrel, down 31 cents, in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 2:54 p.m. Singapore time. The volume of all contracts traded was 44 percent below the 100-day average. Futures advanced $1 to $96.62 yesterday, the highest close since April 2.
Brent for June settlement fell 25 cents to $104.09 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The front-month European benchmark was at a premium of $7.78 to WTI. It closed at $7.72 yesterday, the narrowest gap since January 2011.
U.S. Inventories
Total U.S. crude stockpiles rose by 230,000 barrels, according to the EIA, the Energy Department’s statistical arm. That compares with a projected gain of 2 million in a Bloomberg News survey. Refinery run rates climbed 2.6 percentage points, the most since September, to 87 percent.
Gasoline stockpiles declined by 910,000 barrels last week, said the EIA. They were forecast to slip by 475,000 barrels, according to the median estimate of 12 analysts in the Bloomberg survey. The U.S. Memorial Day holiday on May 27 marks the start of the nation’s peak driving period.
Distillate inventories, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, increased 1.8 million barrels, according to the EIA. They were predicted to advance by 500,000 barrels, the Bloomberg survey shows.
The 500-mile (805-kilometer) Seaway pipeline operated by Enterprise Products Partners LP (EPD) and Enbridge Inc. (ENB) won’t be able to carry its expected average of 335,000 barrels a day of crude in its first year of operation since it was expanded, according to a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission yesterday. Daily throughput will average about 295,000 barrels through May, the filing shows.
Seaway, which transports crude from Cushing to refineries in the Houston area, is operating below capacity because of limited offtake capability at the end of the line, which won’t be repaired until next year. The pipeline’s capacity was increased to 400,000 barrels a day on Jan. 11.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Sharples in Melbourne at bsharples@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net
