http://www.nasdaq.com/article/oil-investors-take-a-closer-look-at-production-20150517-00025
A spotlight has landed on a previously overlooked metric as oil traders drill deeper for clues on price movement. More often, investors are looking to weekly U.S. oil-production data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration for signs the global glut of crude that sunk prices last year is starting to shrink.
That data point, however, has some significant, well-known limitations, and some analysts say traders are giving too much credence to it. The EIA's weekly production data are largely based on a forecasting model, not reported output. And the week-to- week changes are often too small to be a reliable indicator of whether production is rising or falling, according to the EIA.
Still, on April 1, when the EIA report showed the first weekly production decline since January, the U.S. oil price surged by 5.2% to settle above $50 a barrel, even though the same report showed domestic crude supplies at a record high. Similarly, a small weekly production decline reported April 15 sent prices up 5.8% for the day.
Traders "only want to focus narrowly on the U.S. production data," said Tim Evans, energy-futures specialist at Citi Futures, a unit of Citigroup Inc. "They're basically intent on examining the bark on a tree rather than taking in the entire forest."