Crude oil stockpiles fell slightly last week

For the week ended August 22 crude-oil inventories fell by 100,000 barrels to 305.8 million barrels, which is 6.1 percent below year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.

Analysts had expected a boost of 1.5 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline inventories fell by 1.2 million barrels, or 0.6 percent, to 195.4 million barrels, which is 1.1 percent below year-ago levels. Analysts expected stockpiles of the motor fuel to fall by 2.8 million barrels.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended August 22 was 1.6 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging 9.4 million barrels a day.

At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 87.3 percent of total capacity on average, a gain of 1.6 percentage points from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to rise by 0.25 percentage point.

Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, remained unchanged at 132.1 million barrels for the week ended August 22. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 900,000 barrels.

At the pump, gas prices fell less than a penny overnight to a national average of $3.667 a gallon Wednesday, and remain well above the year-ago average of $2.745 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

In morning trading, light, sweet crude for October delivery rose $2.67, or 2.2 percent, to $118.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.