U.S. commercial oil inventories fell while gasoline and distillate stockpiles increased, the government said Wednesday, The Associated Press reports.
Crude supplies shrank by 4.2 million barrels, or 1.2 percent, to 335.3 million barrels for the week ended Dec. 31, the Energy Department said. The total was about 2.4 percent higher than year-ago levels.
Analysts expected a drop of 1.25 million barrels for the week, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Gasoline supplies increased by 3.3 million barrels, or 1.5 percent, to 218.1 million barrels, the department’s Energy Information Administration reported. That’s 0.7 percentage point less than year-ago levels. Analysts expected gasoline reserves to increase by 600,000 barrels.
Demand for gasoline in the past four weeks has averaged 9.2 million barrels a day, which was 2.8 percent more than the same period a year ago.
Inventories of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, added 1.1 million barrels, or 0.7 percentage point, at 162.1 million barrels, the agency said. That was 1.9 percent more than a year ago.
U.S. refineries ran at 88 percent of total capacity on average, which was an increase of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to remain unchanged.
Crude prices lost 99 cents to $88.39 in early trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.