Crude-oil inventories rose last week for the fourth straight time, while gasoline stockpiles fell after an unexpected jump in the prior period, according to government data released Wednesday.
For the week ended May 9, inventories of the motor fuel fell by 1.7 million barrels, or 0.8 percent, to 210.2 million barrels, which were 5.9 percent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.
Analysts expected stockpiles of gasoline to fall by only 800,000 barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Crude-oil inventories rose by just 200,000 barrels, or 0.1 percent, to 325.8 million barrels, which were 4.3 percent below year-ago levels. Analysts expected a gain of 2.5 million barrels.
Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended May 9 was about 0.3 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging nearly 9.3 million barrels a day.
At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 86.6 percent of total capacity on average, a gain of 1.6 percentage points. Analysts expected capacity to rise by only 0.8 percentage point.
Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 1.4 million barrels to 107.1 million barrels for the week ended May 9. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 1.1 million barrels.
At the pump, gas prices rose nearly 3 cents overnight to a record high national average of $3.76 a gallon Wednesday, and are well above the year-ago average of $3.09 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Diesel prices also set a record of $4.42 a gallon.
In morning trading, light, sweet crude for June delivery fell 94 cents to $124.88 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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