By Claudia Assis
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures added to gains Wednesday after a weekly government report showed a larger-than-expected decrease in crude inventories. Oil for September delivery CLU2 +0.94% rose 84 cents, or 1%, to $88.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded at $88.60 a barrel before the data. The Energy Information Administration reported a drop of 6.5 million barrels of supplies for the week ended July 27. Analysts polled by Platts had expected a decline of 1.6 million. The EIA also reported gasoline inventories dropped 2.2 million barrels, and stockpiles of distillates were down 1 million barrels. The analysts surveyed by Platts had expected gasoline supplies up 400,000 barrels and distillates inventories up 1.6 million barrels.
