Crude oil stockpiles drop by 5 million barrels

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Crude oil inventories fell last week, while gasoline supplies grew, the government said Thursday.

The Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report that crude inventories shrank by 5 million barrels to 358.2 million barrels, which is 3.1 percent higher than year-ago levels and above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.

Analysts expected a drop of 3.5 million barrels for the week ended July 2, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline inventories rose by 1.3 million barrels to 219.4 million barrels. That was in line with analysts’ expectations and 3 percent above year-ago levels.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended July 2 was 2 percent higher than a year earlier, averaging nearly 9.4 million barrels a day.

At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 89.8 percent of total capacity on average, a rise of 1.4 percentage points from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to remain unchanged at 88.4 percent.

Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 300,000 barrels to 159.7 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 1.9 million barrels.

Oil prices rose $1.08 to $75.15 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.