The recent Energy Information Administration petroleum report examined the relationship between the retail gasoline prices and the NYMEX Harbor reformulated gasoline before oxygenate blending (RBOB) futures prices.
Here is a weekly review of the EIA petroleum report regarding crude oil price and petroleum stocks for the week ending May 6th:
Petroleum Stocks, production and imports
U.S. Petroleum and oil stocks keep on rising and during last week they inclined by 6.5 million barrels, a 0.36% increase compared to the previous week. For the week ending on May 6th the oil stocks reached 1,774.0 million barrels – the highest level since February 25th, 2011.
Part of this rise is due to the increase in U.S. Ending Stocks of Crude oil by 0.35% or 3.8 million barrels– reaching 1,096.9 million barrels.
The chart below presents the petroleum and oil stocks levels compared to the WTI crude oil prices during 2011.
The chart shows that up to last week, as the petroleum and oil stocks inclined, the WTI spot oil prices kept on rising. Last week, oil prices declined for the first time since the beginning of April. The linear correlation of these two data series (their weekly percent changes) is at -0.17, while their data series (the trend) have a -0.89 linear correlation.
The four week average US production (million of barrels a day) for the week of May 6th reached 5.617, which was 0.1% below the average level of the previous week, but was 2.1% above the average production at the same time last year;
Crude oil imports bounced back and rose (4 week average) by 1.1% compared to the week of 29/4/2011, but was 9.7% below the same time last year.
The crude oil refinery inputs (4 week average) reached 14.087 (million b/d), an increase of 0.2% compared to the previous week of 29/4/2011.
Below is a detailed recap of the information listed above:
Crude oil price, Gasoline and Diesel prices for the week ending on May 6th
The average U.S. gasoline retail price increased very moderately last week by 0.2 cents per gallon compared to the previous week’s average, to reach 3.97 $/g, which is 1.06 $/g higher than for the same period in 2010.
The national average Diesel prices declined by 2 cents compared to the previous week, and it reached 4.1$/g. which is 0.98$/g higher than last year’s average price at same time.
A detailed analysis on crude oil price for the week of May 6 is herein.
In total, during last week there were declines in US production and oil prices, and rises in petroleum stocks, imports and refineries inputs.
Propane
According to recent report, propane stocks continued to rise; last week, the stocks inclined by 1,010 thousand barrels – a 3.64% increase – reaching 28.76 million barrels – the highest level since February 25, 2011.
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For further reading (in this site):
- Crude oil prices outlook – May 11
- Oil prices fell sharply last week – Weekly recap 2-6 May
- Crude oil prices Monthly outlook –April 2011
Previous posts on this subject:
- Petroleum and oil stocks in the US continued to rise – May 5
- Petroleum stocks bounced back with a moderate rise – April 28
- Petroleum stocks keep on falling – EIA review April 21