Oil steady despite weak EIA report

27/08/2009

Crude oil prices were relatively stable during electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange this morning (August 27th), despite the publication of weak demand data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) yesterday.

Analysts had expected that crude, heating oil, gasoline and propane inventories all fell in the US last week, following on from an unexpected drop witnessed in the previous week.

However, data from the EIA showed that crude stocks actually climbed last week, rising 200,000 barrels to take total inventories to 343.8 million barrels.

Meanwhile, heating oil and other distillate stocks also rose 800,000 barrels, while propane inventories climbed 850,000 barrels.

Gasoline was the only commodity to buck the upward trend, with inventories falling 1.7 million barrels, partly due to increased seasonal demand for the fuel.

Reacting to the report, oil prices closed lower in trading yesterday and continued to fall at a slower rate this morning.