College Stock: Penny Stock News

SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal, Naureen S. Malik, Dow Jones Newswires, May 5, 2010 10:52 AM EST

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–U.S. crude and gasoline inventories rose well above analysts’ expectations last week, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Crude oil stockpiles expanded by 2.8 million barrels to 360.6 million barrels for the week ended April 30. That compares to an average survey estimate of 700,000-barrel increase.

Data released by the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, late Tuesday showed that stocks rose by nearly 3 million barrels from the week-earlier level that had been revised up by 577,000 barrels.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, futures were already down in anticipation of bearish data and renewed European debt concerns. June crude oil futures were recently down 3% at $80.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. RBOB gasoline for June fell 3.4% to $2.2441 a gallon and heating oil declined 2.7% to $2.2011 a gallon.

Over the past week, the U.S.’s largest refinery operators indicated that while demand for gasoline and diesel has started improving, the recovery is hindered by high unemployment rates. Refining margins will also continue to be pressured by inventory gluts and excess refining capacity.

Gasoline stockpiles rose by 1.3 million barrels to 224.9 million barrels, the department’s Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report versus the forecast of a 100,000-barrel increase in a Dow Jones Newswires survey of 11 analysts.

Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, added 573,000 barrels to 152.4 million barrels. Analysts were expecting stocks to rise by 1.5 million barrels.

Refining capacity utilization rose by 0.6 percentage point to 89.6%, the highest level since the week ended Jan. 4, 2008 when the rate was at 91.3%. The base number of total production capacity has declined in recent months. Analysts estimated a 0.1 percentage point drop.

API reported a that inventories rose for gasoline by 1.5 million barrels last week and by 1.4 million barrels for distillates. The industry group pegged the refining rate to 87.4% of capacity, up by 2.7 percentage points.

U.S. Oil Inventories:
For week ended April 30:
             Crude   Distillates  Gasoline   Refinery Use
EIA data:    +2.8      +0.6       +1.3        +0.6
Forecast:    +0.7      +1.5       +0.1        -0.1

Figures in millions of barrels, except for refining use, which is reported in percentage points. Forecasts are the average of expectations in a Dow Jones Newswires survey of analysts earlier in the week.