Crude prices ended higher on Thursday, 26 March, 2009. Prices gave up yesterday's losses after EIA's weekly inventory report by the energy department showed that crude inventories rose more than expected last week. It was due to the drop in demand for petroleum products.
On Thursday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for May delivery closed at $54.35/barrel (higher by $1.58 or 3%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Last week, crude ended higher by 10.4%. For the month of February, crude prices had ended higher by 1.5%.
Oil prices had reached a high of $147 on 11 July, 2008 but have dropped almost 61.6% since then. Year to date, in 2009, crude prices are higher by 21.3%. On a yearly basis, crude prices are lower by 48%.
The Labor Department reported on Thursday, 26 March, 2009 that the number of people collecting state unemployment benefits reached yet another new record last week, jumping 122,000 to a seasonally adjusted 5.56 million.
In a separate report, the Commerce Department reported on Thursday 26 March, 2009 that in its third estimate of quarterly growth, the U.S. economy experienced its most violent contraction during the fourth quarter, with real gross domestic product plunging at a 6.3% annualized seasonally adjusted rate.
The EIA had reported yesterday that crude inventories rose 3.3 million barrels last week (for the week ended 20 March, 2009), more than the 1.4 million barrels expected. At 356.6 million barrels, stocks are at the highest level since July 1993. U.S. refineries operated at 82% of their operable capacity last week, down slightly from a week ago.
EIA also reported that total petroleum products supplied over the past four weeks averaged 19.1 million barrels a day, down 3.2% from a year ago. Gasoline inventories fell by 1.1 million barrels in the week while distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, declined by 1.6 million barrels.
Also at the Nymex on Thursday, April-dated reformulated gasoline rose 2.4% to $1.5311 a gallon and April heating oil added 1.1% to $1.4813 a gallon.
Natural gas for April delivery fell 38.2 cents, or 8.8%, to $3.947 per million British thermal units. EIA reported today that inventories rose 3 billion cubic feet in the week ended 20 March, 2009 against an expected figure of decline of more than 5 billion cubic feet.
Crude prices had ended FY 2008 lower by 54%, the largest yearly loss since trading began at Nymex.
At the MCX, crude oil for March delivery closed at Rs 2,715/barrel, higher by Rs 30 (1.1%) against previous day's close. Natural gas for April delivery closed at Rs 203.8/mmbtu, lower by Rs 19.7/mmbtu (8.8%).
source: Capital Market