Crude oil stockpiles fell last week, gasoline rose

For the week ended July 4, crude-oil inventories fell by 5.9 million barrels, or 2 percent, to 293.9 million barrels. That is 16.8 percent below year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.

Analysts had expected a drop of only 1.9 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline inventories rose by 900,000 barrels, or 0.4 percent, to 211.8 million barrels, 3.4 percent above year-ago levels. Analysts expected stockpiles of the motor fuel to rise by 500,000 barrels.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended July 4 was 2.1 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging more than 9.3 million barrels a day.

At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 89.2 percent of total capacity on average, unchanged from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to remain steady last week.

Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 1.8 million barrels to 122.5 million barrels for the week ended July 4. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 2.2 million barrels.

At the pump, gas prices remained steady overnight at a record-high national average of nearly $4.11 a gallon, and are well above the year-ago average of about $2.98 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

In midday trading, light, sweet crude for August delivery rose $1.37 to $137.41 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.