U.S. commercial crude inventories increased last week while gasoline and distillate stockpiles fell, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
Commercial crude oil inventories increased by 2 million barrels, or 0.5 percentage percent, to 368.2 million barrels for the week ending Oct. 29, the Energy Department said.
The total was 9.6 percent more than the year-ago level and remained at the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.
Analysts predicted an increase of 2 million barrels for the week, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Gasoline inventories fell by 2.7 million barrels, or 1.3 percent, to 212.3 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. Analysts expected supplies to grow by 1.1 million barrels.
Gasoline reserves were 1.9 percent above year-ago levels and at the upper limit of the average range. Demand for gasoline over the past four weeks was 9 million barrels a day, which was unchanged from the year-ago period.
U.S. refineries ran at 81.8 percent of total capacity on average, compared with 83.7 percent in the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to increase 0.3 percentage point to 84 percent.
Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, declined by 3.6 million barrels, or 2.1 percent, to 164.9 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to fall by 900,000 barrels.
Crude oil prices rose 81 cents to $84.71 a barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
