Houston — U.S. crude oil stockpiles rose while gasoline and distillate inventories fell last week as seasonal maintenance at refineries led to lower processing, the Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.
Crude inventories rose by 4.6 million barrels to 432.5 million barrels in the week ended February 14, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 3.1 million-barrel build.
Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose by 1.5 million barrels last week.
U.S. and global crude futures extended gains slightly following the report. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) was trading up 75 cents at $73 a barrel by 12:14 p.m. EST (1314 GMT), while Brent rose 90 cents to $76.93.
“The low refinery run rate is still contributing to this backup in crude oil supplies,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital in New York, adding that the low utilization was also contributing to easing gasoline inventories.
“Refineries are just not cranking out as much gasoline as we would have expected.”
Refinery crude runs by 15,000 barrels per day (bpd), and utilization rates fell by 0.1 percentage point in the week to 84.9% of total capacity.
Gasoline stocks fell by 151,000 barrels to 247.9 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with expectations for a 6,000-barrel draw.
Distillate stockpiles , which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 2.1 million barrels to 116.6 million barrels, versus forecasts for a 1.6 million-barrel drop, the EIA data showed.
Net U.S. crude imports fell last week by 961,000 bpd, and exports rose 472,000 bpd, the EIA said.
Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston Editing by Marguerita Choy – Reuters
