With gasoline prices poised to break records at the pump in the United States, energy futures prices jumped Thursday as traders noticed a gas supply imbalance in the fine print of Wednesday's government inventory report. Though the Energy Information Administration reported that gasoline stocks rose an average of 400,000 barrels last week, the first increase in 13 weeks, a closer inspection shows much of that increase is due to a 1.1-million barrel increase in inventories on the West Coast, said Kevin Saville, an analyst at Platts Oilgram News, according to AP. «When you back out that 1.1 million build, you really get a draw (or reduction in inventories) of 700,000 barrels in the rest of the country,» Saville said. The West Coast is relatively isolated from the rest of the country, meaning an increase in gasoline inventories there does not do the rest of the U.S. much good. The national average price of gas at the pump rose to $3.037 a gallon (80 cents a liter) on Thursday, up 0.3 cent overnight, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Gasoline futures rose 6.66 cents to $2.2975 a gallon on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Light, sweet crude for June delivery rose 26 cents to $61.81 a barrel on the Nymex. Also on the Nymex, heating oil futures gained 4.23 cents to $1.8581 per gallon while natural gas prices rose 2.2 cents to $7.742 per 1,000 cubic feet. Brent crude for June delivery gained 58 cents to $65.78 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London. With the start of summer driving season only weeks away, analysts are concerned that gasoline supplies won't meet demand. While the government's report showed gasoline supplies slightly higher overall, crude inventories built much more than analysts had expected. But that did not have an impact on oil futures, which have been closely tracking gasoline futures prices, analysts say. «The story is still gasoline,» said Tom Kloza, an analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. «The products, particularly gasoline, are driving the market here,» said Saville. «It's keeping crude aloft.» Unplanned outages and scheduled maintenance at refineries, sluggish imports and strong demand have plagued gasoline stocks since early February. At least a dozen additional partial shutdowns have occurred in the U.S. and internationally that cut refining capacity. Kloza thinks pump prices are likely to hit a new high over the next couple of days. The record is $3.057 (81 cents a liter), reached on Sept. 5, 2005, soon after Hurricane Katrina. Continued violence in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer and a leading supplier to the United States, was also supporting higher oil prices on Thursday, analysts said. Gunmen seized four workers in Nigeria's southern oil region, officials said, hours after militants staged coordinated attacks on three pipelines in the wetlands region, knocking out nearly 100,000 barrels a day of crude oil. Italian energy company Eni SpA, whose Agip subsidiary helps operate the network of oil wells and pipelines crisscrossing the vast Niger Delta, said output was cut by 98,000 barrels per day. Markets were also watching subtropical Atlantic storm Andrea. The first named storm of the year formed Wednesday off the southeastern U.S. coast, more than three weeks before the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters said. -- SPA
