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(Reuters) – 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 to 23.3 million barrels.
U.S. and global crude futures extended gains slightly following the report. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) was trading up $1 at $73.25 a barrel by 12:52 p.m. EST (1352 GMT), while Brent rose 75 cents to $76.79.
“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 fell 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.
Utilization has hovered around 85% for the last month due to turnarounds at refineries.
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.
“Due to a spike in natural gas prices and the polar vortex, I would expect strong distillate demand and drawdowns in coming reports,” Kilduff added. U.S. natural gas futures hit a 25-month high on Wednesday as extreme cold in some parts of the country boosted demand for the fuel for heating and cut output by freezing oil and gas wells.
The U.S. four-week average product supplied of distillate fuel oil, a measure of demand, rose to 4.3 million bpd last week, the highest since March 2022.
Net U.S. crude imports fell last week by 961,000 bpd, and exports rose 472,000 bpd, the EIA said.
Domestic crude production fell marginally to 13.5 million bpd as a cold freeze impacted output.
“Cold weather is already impacting and may impact again as we are hearing about more production freeze-offs,” said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group.
Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston Editing by Marguerita Choy
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