Government data scheduled for release Wednesday is expected to show that crude-oil inventories rose last week for the fifth straight period.
The Energy Department's forecasting arm, the Energy Information Administration, publishes petroleum inventory data for the week ended May 16 at 10:30 a.m. EDT.
Analysts expect oil stockpiles grew last week by 900,000 barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy research arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. For the week ended May 9, crude-oil inventories rose by 200,000 barrels, or 0.1 percent, to 325.8 million barrels, which were 4.3 percent below year-ago levels.
Meanwhile, gasoline inventories fell by 1.7 million barrels, or 0.8 percent, to 210.2 million barrels, which were 5.9 percent above year-ago levels. Analysts expect stockpiles of the motor fuel grew by 500,000 barrels last week.
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 expect capacity rose by 0.6 percentage point last week.
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 expect distillate stocks rose by about 1.5 million barrels last week.
At the pump, gas prices rose nearly a penny overnight to a record high national average of $3.80 a gallon Tuesday, and are well above the year-ago average of $3.20 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Diesel prices also set a record of $4.54 a gallon.
Light, sweet crude for June delivery traded as high as $129.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Tuesday before settling at $129.07, up $2.02 from Monday's record high.
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