Crude-oil inventories rose last week after surging in the prior period, while gasoline stockpiles jumped less than expected, according to government data released Wednesday. For the week ended Oct.17 crude-oil inventories rose by 3.2 million barrels, or 1 percent, to 311.4 million barrels, which is 0.7 percent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. Analysts had expected a boost of 2.9 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill (nyse: MHP - news - people ) Cos. Gasoline inventories rose by 2.7 million barrels, or 1.4 percent, to 196.5 million barrels, which is 1.4 percent under year-ago levels. Analysts expected stockpiles of the motor fuel to rise by 3 million barrels. Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Oct.17 was 4.3 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging 8.8 million barrels a day. At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 84.8 percent of total capacity on average, a gain of 2.6 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to rise by 0.85 percent to 83.05 percent. Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 2.2 million barrels to 124.3 million barrels for the week ended Oct.17. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 600,000 barrels. At the pump, gas prices rose fell about 3 cents overnight to a new national average of $2.858 gallon Wednesday, and remain just above the year-ago average of $2.82 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. In morning trading, light, sweet crude for December delivery tumbled nearly 6 percent, or $4.04, to $68.14 barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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