NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / April 20, 2017 / Oil & Gas stocks slumped on Wednesday alongside oil prices after the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a smaller-than-expected decline in U.S. crude inventories. On Wednesday, U.S. crude futures slumped 3.76 percent to close at $50.44 a barrel. The EIA reported crude inventories declined by 1 million barrels for the week ended April 14th, short of analysts' expectations of a decrease of 1.5 million barrels. Gasoline inventories unexpectedly grew by 1.5 million barrels, compared to expectations of a 1.9 million barrel decrease, according to a Reuters poll.

"[Wednesday's] crude drawdown was not as large as expected," John Kilduff, founding partner at Again Capital, told CNBC in an interview Wednesday. "There was also a large jump in refinery capacity utilization ahead of the peak summer driving season. That's weighing on the perception of the [EIA] report." Kilduff added, "In other words, production of these refined products is expected to rise, increasing inventories."

RDI Initiates Coverage on:

Chesapeake Energy Corp.
https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=CHK

Southwestern Energy Company
https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=SWN

Chesapeake Energy's shares declined 2.83 percent to close at $5.50 a share on Wednesday. The stock traded between $5.48 and $5.73 on volume of 40.03 million shares traded. The company is scheduled to release results for the first quarter of 2017 before market open on Thursday, May 4th. Chesapeake has also scheduled a conference call to discuss the results at 9:00 am ET on the same day. The company expects average daily production to be in the range of 515,000 to 535,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) for the 2017 first quarter, of which average daily oil production is expected to range between 80,000 and 85,000 barrels per day. Shares of Chesapeake Energy have fallen approximately 21.65 percent year-to-date.

Access RDI's Chesapeake Energy Research Report at:
https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=CHK

Southwestern Energy's shares declined 0.27 percent to close at $7.31 a share on Wednesday. The stock traded between $7.29 and $7.63 on volume of 25.05 million shares traded. The company has scheduled its first quarter 2017 earnings conference call on Friday, April 28th at 10:00 a.m. ET. On April 4th, Southwestern Energy was replaced by Computer Sciences Corp. in the S&P 500. Southwestern Energy was added to the S&P MidCap 400 on April 4th. On April 19th, Cowen and Company upgraded the company's rating to "outperform" from "market perform". Shares of Southwestern Energy have fallen approximately 32.44 percent year-to-date.

Access RDI's Southwestern Energy Research Report at:
https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=SWN

Our Actionable Research on Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) and Southwestern Energy Company (NYSE: SWN) can be downloaded free of charge at Research Driven Investing.

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SOURCE: RDInvesting.com