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Ahead of the Bell: Oil Inventory Report
AP
Posted: 2008-06-25 08:31:02
WASHINGTON (AP) - Government data scheduled for release Wednesday is expected to show that crude-oil inventories fell last week for the sixth straight period.

The Energy Department's forecasting arm, the Energy Information Administration, publishes petroleum inventory data for the week ended June 20 at 10:35 a.m. EDT.

Analysts expect oil stockpiles fell last week by 1.7 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. For the week ended June 13, crude-oil inventories fell by 1.2 million barrels, or 0.4 percent, to 301 million barrels. That was14.2 percent below year-ago levels.

Meanwhile, gasoline inventories fell by 1.2 million barrels, or 0.6 percent, to 208.9 million barrels. That was 2.6 percent above year-ago levels. Analysts expect stockpiles of the motor fuel grew by 750,000 barrels last week.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended June 13 was 1.8 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging more than 9.3 million barrels a day.

At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 89.3 percent of total capacity on average, a gain of 0.7 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expect capacity rose by 0.4 percentage point last week.

Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 2.6 million barrels to 116.6 million barrels for the week ended June 13. Analysts expect distillate stocks rose by 1.7 million barrels last week.

At the pump, gas prices dipped less than a penny overnight to remain at a national average of $4.07 a gallon Wednesday. They are well above the year-ago average of about $2.98 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose 26 cents to settle at $137 on the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday.


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06/25/08 08:28 EDT