Ahead of the Bell: Oil Inventory Report

The Energy Department's forecasting arm, the Energy Information Administration, publishes petroleum inventory data for the week ended June 27 at 10:35 a.m. EDT.

Analysts expect oil stockpiles fell last week by 1.2 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. For the week ended June 20, crude-oil inventories rose by 800,000 barrels, or 0.3 percent, to 301.8 million barrels, which were 14.4 percent below year-ago levels.

Meanwhile, gasoline inventories fell by 100,000 barrels to 208.8 million barrels, which were 2.3 percent above year-ago levels. Analysts expect stockpiles of the motor fuel fell by 500,000 barrels last week.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended June 20 was 2.1 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging nearly 9.3 million barrels a day.

At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 88.6 percent of total capacity on average, a drop of 0.7 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expect capacity rose by 0.5 percentage point last week.

Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 2.8 million barrels to 119.4 million barrels for the week ended June 20. Analysts expect distillate stocks rose by 2.4 million barrels last week.

At the pump, gas prices rose less than a penny overnight to a record-high national average of nearly $4.09 a gallon, and are well above the year-ago average of about $2.96 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose 97 cents to settle at $140.97 on the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday.