Tainted Alpha

(For The Week Ending August 20, 2010)

Crude oil stocks rose 4.1 million barrels for week ending August 20; Gasoline stocks increased 2.3 million barrels; Distillate stocks rose 1.8 million barrels; Propane/propylene stocks were 1.1 million barrels higher; Other oils stocks were up 2.2 million barrels; Total crude oil and petroleum stocks were 8.9 million barrels higher than the week before.

Refinery utilization fell 2.3% to 87.7%.

Crude oil and petroleum product net imports rose for 0.4 million barrels to 10.8 million barrels.

All categories of petroleum stocks are still at extremely elevated levels; storage capacity is probably becoming an issue. Gasoline and distillate stocks at multi-year highs.

Deux ex machina in a form of weakening U.S. dollars saved yesterday crude oil (and stocks) from braking lower band of trading range.

Chart 1. Crude Oil Futures

Source: StockCharts.com

Chart 2. Weekly Change in U.S. Crude Oil and Distillates Stocks

Source: EIA

Chart 3. U.S. Total Crude Oil, Gasoline and Distillate Ending Stocks

Source: EIA

Chart 4. DOE Motor Gasoline Total Inventory

Source: DOE

Chart 5. DOE Distillate Fuel Oil Total Inventory

Source: DOE

Chart 6. U.S. Refinery Capacity, Inputs, and Production

Source: EIA

Chart 7. Weekly U.S. Total Crude Oil and Petroleum Products Imports and Exports

Source: EIA

Crude Oil

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 5:33 am and is filed under Commodities, U.S. Petroleum Weekly. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.