US DOE Crude Oil Inventories - Mixed reading but Crude rallies anyhow

Today March 7th 2012 at 15:30 GMT (10:30 EST) the Department of Energy (DOE) released the Inventory figures for Crude, Distillates and Gasoline. The numbers were mixed across the complex with Crude and Distillate a draw but Gasoline a build. Also the deviations were not very big.

Crude oil has sold off somewhat from the $110 a barrel highs on the evening of March 1st. Crude was going up mostly in response to the geopolitical tension with Iran in the Gulf, but as most risky assets have sold off recently, so to has Crude pulled back about $5-6 and was come down to test the $105 key handle, dipping below it as far at $104.36 in typical crude fashion. It has a was of getting quite volitile and pushing thru key support or resistance zones and then snapping back even quicker. It appears the market was just waiting for this number to be released, as despite the figures Crude started to rally anyhow. The Yen crosses had started to rally about before the market open, and half an hour after this release the US Dollar index started to move off its key level highs of 80.00 which accelerated the move in Crude to the upside.

Here is the data:

DOE U.S. Crude Oil Inventories
Estimates- Median: +1500k Average: +840k Low Estimate: -3500k High Estimate: +3000k
Actual: +832k Prior: +4160k No Revision

DOE U.S. Distillate Inventory
Estimates- Median: -1650k Average: -1345k Low Estimate: -2500k High Estimate: +1000k
Actual: -1944k Prior: -2069k No Revision

DOE U.S. Gasoline Inventories
Estimates- Median: -1600k Average: -1600k Low Estimate: -2500k High Estimate: -500k
Actual: -396k Prior: -1600k No Revision

DOE U.S. Refinery Utilization
Estimates- Median: 0.00% Average: -0.06% Low Estimate: -0.75% High Estimate: +0.50%
Actual: +0.30% Prior: -1.90% No Revision

DOE Cushing OK Crude Inventory
Actual: +2365k Prior: +1648k No Revision

DOE Crude Oil Implied Demand
Actual: +14399 Prior: +14407 No Revision

DOE Distillate Implied Demand
Actual: +4668.7 Prior: +4796.6 No Revision

DOE Gasoline Implied Demand
Actual: +8878.1 Prior: +8979.4 No Revision

Here is the 15 second chart of the Crude Oil Future

Also some Energy Stocks. The smaller ones seem to react better than the big ones like EXXon or BP, I guess since these larger ones have their fingers in lots of pies. Both Devon and Chesapeake followed Crude pretty well, but Cabot took was whippy at first and took longer to resolve upward with the general trend in Energy.