Crude inventories and gasoline supplies rose last week, the government said Wednesday.
Crude inventories rose by 400,000 barrels to 353 million barrels, which is above the average range for this time of year, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.
Gasoline inventories rose by 1.1 million barrels to 222.2 million barrels.
The rise in gasoline supplies was close to the 1-million barrel increase expected by analysts surveyed by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos. The expansion in crude inventories came as a surprise. Analysts forecast supplies would shrink by 1.6 million barrels.
Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended July 16 was 2 percent higher than a year earlier, averaging 9.4 million barrels a day.
U.S. refineries ran at 91.5 percent of total capacity on average, up a percentage point from the week before. Analysts expected capacity to slip to 90 percent.
Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 3.9 million barrels to 166.6 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to grow by 1.6 million barrels.
Crude prices fell 53 cents to $77.05 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
