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Energy Department says US crude oil supplies increased last week, gasoline inventories shrank

By: The Associated Press

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 at 11:16 AM | Comments: 0

An oil pump works at sunset in the desert oil fields of Sakhir, Bahrain, on Jan. 22, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Hasan Jamali

NEW YORK, N.Y. - The United States' crude oil supplies rose last week, the government said Wednesday.

Crude inventories increased by 1.1 million barrels, or 0.3 per cent, to 377.5 million barrels, which is 9.5 per cent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.

Analysts expected an increase of 2.6 million barrels for the week ended Feb. 22, according to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline supplies declined by 1.9 million barrels, or 0.8 per cent, to 228.5 million barrels. That's 0.6 per cent below year-ago levels. Analysts expected gasoline supplies to shrink by 1.5 million barrels.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Feb. 22 was 2 per cent higher than a year earlier, averaging 8.5 million barrels a day.

U.S. refineries ran at 85.1 per cent of total capacity on average, up 2.2 percentage points from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to increase to 83.3 per cent.

Supplies of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, grew by 600,000 barrels to 124.2 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to decline by 1.7 million barrels.

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