Crude and gasoline inventories jumped much more than expected last week as overall demand for motor fuel continued to slide, according to government data released Wednesday.
For the week ended Jan. 16 crude inventories rose by 6.1 million barrels, or 1.9 percent, to 332.7 million barrels, which is 14.3 percent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.
Analysts had expected a boost of 1.9 million barrels, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill (nyse: MHP - news - people ) Cos.
Gasoline inventories rose by 6.5 million barrels, or 3 percent, to 220 million barrels, which is 2 percent below year-ago levels. Analysts expected stockpiles of the motor fuel to rise by 1.9 million barrels.
Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Jan. 16 was 1.6 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging 8.9 million barrels a day.
At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 83.3 percent of total capacity on average, a drop of 1.9 percent from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to slip to 83.8 percent.
Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 800,000 barrels to 145 million barrels for the week ended Jan. 16. Analysts expected distillate stocks to drop 2.25 million barrels.
