U.S. crude inventories showed a bigger draw than analysts expected last week, but also posted a surprising rise in gasoline and distillate stocks, according to data released Wednesday by the the U.S. Department of Energy.
Crude oil stockpiles fell by 2.0 million barrels to 363.1 million barrels for the week ended June 25, compared with an average survey estimate of a 900,000-barrel decline. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, reported a 3.4-million barrel drop last week.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil futures edged up with August Contracts were recently up 0.4% at $76.24 a barrel. July contracts for benchmark gasoline gasoline were recently down by 0.02% at $2.0715 a gallon and July heating oil was down 0.6% at $2.0096 a gallon.
Stocks of crude oil and refined products continue to hover at unusually high levels.
Gasoline stockpiles rose by 537,000 barrels to 218.1 million barrels, the department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. That compares to a forecast of a 400,000-barrel decline based on a Dow Jones Newswires survey of 12 analysts.
Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, expanded by 2.5 million barrels to 159.4 million barrels. Analysts expected a 900,000-barrel increase.
Refining capacity utilization fell by one percentage point to 88.4% versus analysts' estimate for a 0.1-percentage-point increase.
API reported that the refining rate dropped by 0.3 percentage points to 86.9% of capacity last week. The industry group's data showed that gasoline stocks fell by 908,000 barrels and distillate inventories rose by 3.98 million barrels.
