Light sweet crude for the June contract came up short this today settling below $47 and $46.92 a barrel. The prices continued to drop after yesterday’s report from the U.S. Dept of Energy saying U.S. inventories continued to climb for 13 of the last 14 weeks.
North Sea Brent crude settled down 20 cents to $47.90 a barrel. Gasoline futures traded up today, opening at $1.42 a gallon and climbing 5 cents before settling at $1.43 a gallon. The real story today seemed to be heating oil, which climbed almost 4 cents a gallon at one point before settling up 3 cents at $1.38.
The heating oil prices rallied amid looming strikes at a number of facilities in France. Distillate fuels like heating oil and diesel inventories remain slim after a short supplied winter and refinery problems continue to create concern for supplies in the fourth quarter.
U.S. inventories grew 4.3 million barrels to 334 million and gasoline stocks rose 1.1 million barrels to 214 million. Many experts feel the market is well supplied as OPEC pumps at its highest levels in over two decades. OPEC has the pumps wide open at 30 million barrels a day and state emphatically that they can pump a lot more.
”I stand here to tell you that Saudi Arabian reserves are plentiful, and we stand ready to raise output as the market dictates,” Naimi said at an energy confidence in Washington on Tuesday.
The June contract ends on Friday and everyone is waiting on the summer driving season to see what happens with inventories as many around the U.S. begin their vacation phase. GasPriceWatch.com reports the national average at $2.10 a gallon at the pump. Their prices are based on people contributing price information from around the country.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
