Numbers released by the government Monday showed that crude inventories and gasoline supplies fell last week.
Crude inventories decreased by 2.5 million barrels, or 0.7 percent, to 357.4 million barrels, which is 7.4 percent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.
Analysts expected a drop of 2.25 million barrels for the week ended Sept. 10, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Gasoline inventories fell by 700,000 barrels, or 0.3 percent, to 224.5 million barrels. That was a bigger decline than analysts expected. Supplies are 8.1 percent above year-ago levels.
Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Sept. 10 was 0.5 percent higher than a year earlier, averaging nearly 9.3 million barrels a day.
At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 87.6 percent of total capacity on average, a drop of 0.6 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to fall to 87.7 percent.
Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 300,000 barrels to 174.5 million barrels for the week ended date. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 800,000 barrels.
Crude prices lost $1.10 at $75.70 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
