U.S. crude oil stocks fell as imports dropped last week, while inventories of oil products rose as refinery utilization dropped, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed Wednesday.
Crude stocks dropped 1.93 million barrels to 334.15 million barrels in the week to Dec. 9. Analysts polled by Reuters had projected a two-million-barrel drawdown, on average.
Crude imports fell 1.11 million barrels per day to 8.29 million bpd.
Refinery utilization dropped 2.6 percentage points to 85.1% of capacity. Analysts had projected an unchanged usage reading.
Gasoline stocks rose 3.82 million barrels to 218.82 million barrels, compared with a 1.7-million-barrel build forecast by analysts. Average gasoline demand in the last four weeks was down 4.5% from the same period last year, the E.I.A. said.
Distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, rose 480,000 barrels to 141.5 million barrels, compared with an average forecast for an 800,000 barrel rise.
Four-week average demand for distillates last week rose 1.8% compared to the year-ago period, E.I.A. data showed.
Stockpiles at the Cushing, Oklahoma hub for NYMEX crude futures deliveries rose 83,000 barrels to 31.19 million barrels.
U.S. oil futures were little changed by the data, trading down $3.13 U.S. at $97.01 U.S. per barrel. They had been down $3.16 U.S. right before the data.
The E.I.A. data came after industry group American Petroleum Institute reported on Tuesday that domestic crude stocks rose 462,000 barrels last week, with gasoline stocks off 12,000 barrels and distillates up 1.2 million barrels.
