U.S. crude inventories unexpectedly fell sharply amid big builds in gasoline and distillates stocks last week, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Crude oil stockpiles declined by 3.8 million barrels to 336.08 million barrels for the week ended Dec. 4, compared with an average survey estimate of a 600,000-barrel increase. Weekly data released by the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, Tuesday showed a 5.82 million-barrel decline in stocks.
The EIA reported that inventories of crude oil and petroleum products remain at unusually high levels for this time of the year. Last week's draw in crude and rise in product builds increased refinery utilization rates but points to continued weak demand due to poor economic conditions.
Gasoline stockpiles rose by 2.25 million barrels to 216.33 million barrels, the department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. That compares to the forecasted increase of 1.5 million barrels of the motor fuel based on a Dow Jones Newswires survey of 17 analysts.
Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, added 1.6 million barrels to 167.32 million barrels. Analysts were expecting a 500,000-barrel drop.
Refining capacity utilization jumped 1.4 percentage points to 81.1%. Analysts had expected a 0.3-percentage-point increase. The utilization rate continues to hover near historical lows, excluding hurricane-related outages.
API reported that gasoline inventories had fallen 753,000 barrels last week and a build of 1.01 million barrels of distillates. The industry group pegged utilization at 81.4%.
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