Crude-oil stockpiles flat again last week

For the week ended Nov. 7 crude-oil inventories remained at 311.9 million barrels, which is 2 percent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.

Analysts had expected a boost of 1.1 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

It was the second consecutive week in which inventory was flat.

Gasoline inventories rose by 2 million barrels, or 1 percent, to 198.1 million barrels, which is 0.9 percent below year-ago levels. Analysts expected stockpiles of the motor fuel to rise by 850,000 barrels.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Nov. 7 was 1.9 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging nearly 9.1 million barrels a day.

At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 84.6 percent of total capacity on average, a drop of 0.7 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity slip 0.2 percentage point to 85.1 percent.

Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 600,000 barrels to 128.4 million barrels for the week ended Nov. 7. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 1 million barrels.

At the pump, gas prices fell about two cents overnight to a new national average of $2.178 gallon Wednesday, below the year-ago average of $3.111 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

In morning trading, light, sweet crude for December fell 12 cents to $56.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but prices have fallen more than 10 percent this week alone.