Prices Soar; Crude Oil Draw Higher Than Expected -- A Draw Of 4 Million Bbls Even Though 30 Million Bbls Released From SPR

This is old news -- it was reported earlier today -- but I was gone all day and am now getting caught up.

Link here.

Crude oil futures spiked to a one-week high on a big draw in crude oil inventories and a slumping U.S. dollar.

Crude oil back to near $100.

The Department of Energy on Wednesday reported a much larger-than-expected draw in crude oil inventories for the week ended Jul. 15, saying that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 3.7 million barrels from the previous week compared with the pull of 1.3 million barrels expected by analysts polled by Platts.

Am I missing something? Didn't President Obama just release 30 million barrels of crude oil from US inventories. Oh, I see now. The higher-than-expected draw was from "commercial crude oil inventories."

So, the commercial crude inventories drew down larger than expected even with 30 million barrels of crude oil being released from US strategic petroleum reserve. "30 million" is  a number that I don't comprehend but in context with "U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 3.7 million barrels from the previous week compared with the pull of 1.3 million barrels expected" puts it into perspective.

Perspective: wow!