By MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. crude-oil inventories rose last week, bucking expectations for a decrease and sending oil prices down slightly.
Commercial crude-oil stockpiles rose two million barrels to 359.1 million barrels, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Energy, versus analysts' estimate of a draw, or decline, of 2.2 million barrels. The American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, said its own survey released late Tuesday showed an inventory increase of 200,000 barrels.
Crude-oil futures edged lower following release of the report. Light, sweet crude oil for October delivery recently fell 20 cents, or 0.2%, to $96.97 a barrel.
Gasoline stockpiles fell 1.2 million barrels to 197.7 million barrels, the department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report, compared with a decrease of 1.5 million barrels expected in a Dow Jones Newswires survey of analysts.
Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, rose 1.5 million barrels to 128.6 million barrels, compared with analysts' forecast for a draw of 100,000 barrels.
Refining capacity utilization fell 1.4 percentage points to 84.7%. Analysts had expected utilization to increase by 0.5 percentage point.
API pegged refinery utilization at 84.3% of capacity last week, down 2.8 percentage points. The industry group said gasoline stockpiles fell 4.2 million barrels while distillate inventories rose 2.6 million barrels.
Figures in millions of barrels, except for refining use, which is reported in percentage points. Forecasts are the average of expectations in a Dow Jones Newswires survey of analysts earlier in the week.
