Crude oil inventories increased last week and gasoline stockpiles dropped, the government said Wednesday.
Crude supplies increased by 1.7 million barrels, or 0.5%, to 363.1 million barrels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.
Analysts expected a decline of 1.75 million barrels for the week ended June 11, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Gasoline inventories dropped by 600,000 barrels to 218.4 million barrels. Analysts expected gasoline levels to rise by 640,000 barrels.
Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended June 11 was 0.7% lower than a year earlier, averaging 9.2 million barrels a day.
Refineries ran at 87.9% of total capacity on average, a decrease of 1.2 percentage points from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to increase 0.03 percentage point to 89.13%.
Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 1.8 million barrels to 156.4 million barrels for the week ended June 4. Analysts expected distillate stocks to grow by 760,000 barrels.
Oil prices fell 28 cents to $76.66 U.S. per barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
