Good Morning March 30, 2011, 10:16 a.m. EDT Crude trades lower; inventories data loom Venezuela emerges as new focus of concern By Claudia Assis, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) â Crude futures traded lower Wednesday, with prospects of a larger-than-expected inventories increase in the U.S. looming and as Venezuela emerged as another sticky point for the oil market. Crude for May delivery (NEW:CLK11) was off 40 cents, or 0.4%, to trade at $104.38 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Syriaâs president offered no concessions in a speech late Tuesday and protests there are expected to continue. Venezuela, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, reported a decline in production and exports and announced it will use more gasoil to its power stations to counteract power outages. Venezuela is a top oil exporter and most of its crude is exported to the United States. Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration is scheduled to report its weekly data on inventories at 10:30 a.m. Eastern. A private group late Tuesday reported a bigger-than-expected increase in supplies. The American Petroleum Institute reported crude supplies rose by 5.7 million barrels, while analysts polled by Platts had expected an increase of around 2.2 million barrels. Other energy products bucked the lower trend set by crude, with gasoline for April delivery (NEW:RBJ11) , a contract that expires later this week, adding 2 cents to $3.05 a gallon. The most-active May contract (NEW:RBK11) added less than a penny to $3.04 a gallon. Natural gas for May delivery (NEW:NGK11) , the front-month contract, rose 7 cents, or 1.7%, to $4.33 per million British thermal units. Accuweather predicted Wednesday an active hurricane season for 2011, with more impact to the U.S. coastline than last year.
http://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) increased by 2.9 million barrels from the previous week.
03/30/2011 10:30 *DJ DOE: US Crude Oil Stocks +2.945M Bbl In Wk; Seen +1.5M Bbl 03/30/2011 10:31 *DJ OIL FUTURES: Crude Extends Losses As US Oil Stockpiles Rise :eek: