The long beleaguered oil industry could not have asked for a better Christmas Eve. A miserable year thanks to huge supply and falling demand has ended up in around a 50% fall in oil investments so far this year. Prices have plunged from over $110 a barrel seen in early 2014 to below $40 level now.

But Santa Clause must have lugged surprise gifts for the oil sector as the price of this liquid commodity started to ascend prior to Christmas. The reason behind this jump was The American Petroleum Institute’s recent report (on December 22) which said the U.S. crude-oil inventories declined 3.6 million barrels in the most recent week.

If this was not enough, the very next day, the U.S. Energy Department indicted a decline of 5.9 million barrels in the week ended December 18. Analysts’ had predicted 1.1 million barrels of jump. U.S. crude oil inventories, which are now around 484.8 million barrels, have never seen such a Christmas Eve in the last 80 years. Gasoline and Distillate fuel output also fell last week, as per Energy Information Administration.

The news brought a fresh lease of life to the oil sector, and why not? The space was shaken by the OPEC top brass Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries’ decision of ‘no product cut’ even after the global supply glut, fast falling demand on global growth issues, rising greenback on the Fed lift-off and mounting U.S. crude stockpiles over the last few weeks (read: 4 Country ETFs to Shun if Oil Hits $20).

ETF Impact 

Following the news of the inventory drawdown, oil futures started to rise. In fact, oil pulled up the entire stock market in the last two days after Fed-related woes upset it a few days back (see all energy ETFs here).
 
United States Oil Fund (USO) – which looks to track the daily changes of the spot price of light, sweet crude oil delivered to Cushing, Oklahoma – gained over 5.6% in the last two days (as of December 23, 2015).
 
iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil TR ETN (OIL) – which reflects the returns that are potentially available through an investment in the WTI crude oil futures – added about 7.1% in the last two days (as of December 23, 2015).
 
United States Brent Oil (BNO) – which looks to track the daily changes in percentage terms of the spot price of Brent crude oil – advanced about 4.4% in the last two days (as of December 23, 2015).
 
PowerShares DB Oil ETF (DBO) – which consists of futures contracts on WTI crude and is intended to reflect the performance of crude oil – returned about 5.6% in the last two days (as of December 23, 2015).