Decent Inventory Data Sparks Oil Prices

Published on Wednesday, 08 February 2012 17:09 Written by Todd Shriber

New York, February 8^th (TradersHuddle.com) – Some decent U.S. inventory data, a pleasant surprise to be sure, helped lift oil prices today with West Texas Intermediate rising 30 cents to settle at $98.71 per barrel. Brent crude added 97 cents to finish at $117.20 a barrel. Those gains came after the U.S. Energy Information Administration said U.S. oil stocks increased by 300,000 barrels last week. That’s far better than the gain of 2.25 million barrels analysts had been expecting. The EIA said that U.S. petroleum demand fell by 4.8 percent to a four-week average of 18.1 million barrels per day, good for the weakest performance since April 1997, according to the Associated Press.

On the international front, while Europe and Iran go back and forth regarding Iran’s oil exports to the European Union, the Middle East country has found at least one willing buyer to pick up some of the slack: India. India, the second-fastest growing major economy in the world behind China and a rising oil consumer in its own right, has been looking to make international oil acquisitions to meet soaring domestic demand, but has fallen short on several occasions.

Iranian crude exports to India rose to 550,000 barrels a day in January, up 37.5% from December, according to the Wall Street Journal. China is believed to currently be importing about 250,000 barrels per day of Iranian crude.

More good news for BP (NYSE: BP), Europe’s second-largest closed at $47, just pennies off a new 52-week, after U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan ruled today that BP and other companies with ties to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill will not have to contend with select internal emails during the trial to determine fault for the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) closed modestly lower while Transocean (NYSE: RIG) made a small gain on the news. Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC), which had a 25% non-operating interest in the Macondo well project, slid half a percent.

In oil earnings news, Statoil (NYSE: STO), Norway’s largest oil company, jumped 2.7% after the company said its fourth-quarter profit rose to higher oil prices and the benefit of asset sales. Statoil said production climbed 1.5% to 1.975 million barrels of oil equivalents a day. The company is looking to boost that total to 2.5 million barrels per day by 2020. France’s Total (NYSE: TOT), Europe’s third-largest oil company, caps off the earnings reports from the European majors on Friday.

The Energy Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLE) wilted late in Wednesday’s session as traders sold off the ETF as it was trading near six-month highs. Dow components Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) and Chevron (NYSE: CVX) represent about a third of XLE’s weight.