Crude-oil inventories, gas stockpiles slide

For the week ended August 8 crude-oil inventories fell by 400,000 barrels, or 0.1 percent, to 296.5 million barrels, which was 11 percent below year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.

Analysts had expected a boost of 500,000 barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline inventories dropped by 6.4 million barrels, or 3.1 percent, to 202.8 million barrels, which was 0.1 percent above year-ago levels. Analysts expected stockpiles of the motor fuel to slip by 2.2 million barrels.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended August 8 was 1.9 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging 9.4 million barrels a day.

At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 85.9 percent of total capacity on average, a drop of 1.1 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to fall by 0.75 percentage point.

Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, decreased by 1.7 million barrels to 131.6 million barrels for the week ended August 8. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 1.9 million barrels.

At the pump, gas prices fell a penny overnight to a new national average of $3.787 a gallon Wednesday, but remain well above the year-ago average of $2.767 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

In midday trading, light, sweet crude for September delivery rose $1.80 to $114.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.