Closing Commodities: Crude closes near Tuesday's 7-week high ahead of tomorrow's rig count; natural gas extends gains & closes near the midpoint of its early morning rally post-EIA
- Crude closed just under Tuesday's 7-week high after EIA reported a smaller-than-expected build in crude & a larger-than-expected draw in gas inventories, compared to Consensus
- April crude oil futures rose $0.86 (+1.6%) to $54.47/barrel
- Reminder: Baker Hughes rig count data will be released tomorrow at 1 pm ET.
- EIA highlights:
- Crude oil inventories had a build of +0.6 mln barrels (consensus called for a build of about +3.475 mln barrels).
- Gasoline inventories had a draw of -2.6 mln barrels (consensus called for a draw of -0.888 mln barrels).
- Distillate inventories had a draw of -4.9 mln barrels.
- Natural gas extended last session's gains & closed near the midpoint of its early morning rally after EIA reported a draw roughly in-line with expectations
- April natural gas closed $0.05 higher (+1.9%) at $2.75/MMBtu
- EIA highlights:
- Natural gas inventory showed a draw of -89 bcf vs expectations for inventory to be a draw between -85 to -93 bcf.
- Working gas in storage was 2,356 Bcf as of Friday, February 17, 2017, according to EIA estimates.
- Stocks were 261 Bcf less than last year at this time and 156 Bcf above the five-year avg of 2,200 Bcf.
- At 2,356 Bcf, total working gas is within the five-year historical range.
- In precious metals, gold & silver erased all of yesterday's losses on continued weakness in the dollar index
- April gold ended today's session up $17.90 (+1.5%) to $1251.60/oz
- Mar silver closed today's session $0.19 higher (+1.1%) at $18.13/oz
- The dollar index was -0.2% around the 100.99 level, provided support to precious metals
- Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.2% around the 87.37 level
- Base metal copper dropped 3.3% & closed down $0.09 around the $2.64/lb level