Fog, and 31 ° F. 
NEW YORK (DTN) — New York Mercantile Exchange spot-month oil futures reversed to the downside after the Energy Information Administration reported across the board stock builds for crude and products during the week-ended July 16.
The EIA data missed analysts’ expectations and were more bearish than the American Petroleum Institute’s data released late Tuesday.
The immediate effect of the EIA data was to pressure both crude and product futures prices after a rally during overnight trade through the opening bell that was prompted by rising equities, strong corporate earnings reports and concerns about a tropical storm formation in the Caribbean.
At 11:00 AM ET, September NYMEX WTI crude futures were down 49cts at
$77.09 bbl, after posting a three-week high of $78.57 earlier before the EIA data came out at 10:30 AM ET.
In products trade, August NYMEX No. 2 heating oil futures dropped 2.16cts to $2.0031 gal after peaking earlier at $2.0487, which is still off Monday’s three-week high at $2.0644.
August NYMEX RBOB gasoline futures decreased 0.29cts to $2.0757, after trading to a fresh three-week high at $2.1073 earlier today.
The EIA reported a build of 360,000 bbl in crude oil stocks, a build of
1.1 million bbl in gasoline and a build of 3.9 million bbl in distillate fuels for the week under review. Implied distillate demand fell by 169,000 bpd to 3.358 million bpd and implied gasoline demand rose 355,000 bpd to
9.435 million bpd.
Citigroup analyst Tim Evans said, “The report was bearish overall, and more bearish for the products and crack spreads.”
He added, “I think we have not fully priced in the data, because the market could go even lower. If you look at distillate numbers I’m not sure who would buy today. We have the highest level of inventories since 1982 for this time of the year.”
