U.S. crude inventories showed a bigger-than-expected draw last week while gasoline stocks and distillates expanded, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Crude oil stockpiles fell by 5.06 million barrels to 353.1 million barrels for the week ended July 9, compared with an average survey estimate of a 1.2-million-barrel draw.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil futures were holding on to earlier losses with August contracts recently trading down 0.5% at $76.72 U.S. a barrel. August futures for RBOB gasoline were recently down 1% at $2.0613 U.S. a gallon and heating oil futures were down 0.8% at $2.0306 U.S. a gallon.
Inventories of crude oil and petroleum products continue to remain at unusually high levels for this time of the year. While demand remains weak it has started to show signs of improvement in recent months. Last week, gasoline consumption was up 1.8% from the year-ago level while distillate demand was 12.9% higher.
Gasoline stockpiles rose by 1.60 million barrels to 221.0 million barrels, the department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report versus expectations that stocks would hold steady with the prior week, based on a Dow Jones Newswires survey of 16 analysts.
Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, added 2.94 million barrels to 162.6 million barrels, compared with analysts' forecast of 800,000-barrel increase.
Refining capacity utilization rose by 0.7 percentage points to 90.5%, the highest level seen since the week ended Jan. 4, 2008. Analysts had expected a 0.1-percentage point drop.
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