Crude inventories fell last week, while gasoline supplies were virtually unchanged, the government said Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.
Crude supplies shrank by 800,000 barrels, or 0.2 percent, to 354.2 million barrels, which is 3.1 percent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.
Analysts expected a drop of 2.25 million barrels for the week ended Aug. 13, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Gasoline inventories were nearly unchanged at 223.3 million barrels. That’s 6.5 percent above year-ago levels. Analysts expected a drop of 1.6 million barrels.
Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Aug. 13 was 3.5 percent higher than a year earlier, averaging nearly 9.5 million barrels a day.
At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 90 percent of total capacity on average, a rise of 1.9 percentage points from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to slip to 87 percent.
Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 1.1 million barrels to 174.2 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 1.4 million barrels.
Crude prices fell $1.40 to $74.37 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
