EIA Says Gasoline Supplies Fell More Than Expected
In its weekly report, the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) said gasoline inventories fell by 1.7 million barrels, or 0.8 percent, to 210.2 million barrels last week — 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.
