U.S. crude inventories rose in line with analysts' forecast last week, but the increase in gasoline stocks was unexpected, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Crude oil stockpiles expanded by 2.9 million barrels to 349.2 million barrels for the week ended March 26, versus an average survey estimate of 2.1-million-barrel increase. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, reported a rise of 421,000 barrels in weekly data released Tuesday afternoon.
Petroleum product stocks, meanwhile, continue to hover at unusually high levels. Gasoline stocks edged higher when analysts were expecting a draw as refiners started preparing summer grade gasoline ahead of the driving season.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil and petroleum product futures pared early gains. The May crude contract was recently up 0.6% at $82.86 U.S. a barrel. April RBOB gasoline was up 0.5% at $2.2850 U.S. a gallon and April heating oil was recently up 0.9% at $2.1437 U.S. a gallon.
Gasoline stockpiles rose by 313,000 barrels to nearly 224.9 million barrels, the department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. That compares with the forecast of a 1.3-million-barrel decline in a Dow Jones Newswires survey of analysts.
Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, fell by 1.1 million barrels to 144.6 million barrels. Analysts were expecting a draw of 1.5 million barrels.
Refining capacity utilization rose by 1.5 percentage points to 82.6%, the highest level since the week ending Oct. 2 when utilization was at 85%. Analysts had expected a 0.2-percentage-point increase.
API showed a 0.3-percentage-point increase in refinery processing rates to 82.1% of capacity last week. The industry group also reported that gasoline stocks fell by 946,000 barrels and distillates declined by one million barrels.
