Crude oil inventories rose unexpectedly last week in the United States while distillates posted a surprising draw, according to weekly government data issued on Wednesday.

Crude oil stocks rose by 1.2 million barrels to reach a total of 321.8 million barrels in the week to September 28 in contrast to forecast of a 800,000 barrel draw by a Reuters poll of analysts, the U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed.

Distillate inventories experienced an unexpected draw of 1.2 million barrels contrary to analysts' expectations of a 1.3 million barrels build.

Inventories of gasoline fell unexpectedly by 100,000 barrels, compared to a forecast for a build of 200,000 barrels.

Refinery utilization rose 0.6 percent to 87.5 percent of capacity, against analyst predictions that utilization would remain unchanged.

Crude imports fell 189,000 barrels per day (bpd) while product imports were down 56,000 bpd last week.