U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell unexpectedly last week while gasoline inventories also drew down and distillates stocks rose, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
Crude inventories fell by 7.5 million barrels in the week to March 24 to 473.7 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 100,000-barrel rise. Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub fell by 1.6 million barrels last week, the EIA said. Refinery crude runs rose by 437,000 barrels per day in the last week, and refinery utilization rates rose by 1.7 percentage points in the week. Gasoline stocks fell by 2.9 million barrels in the week to 226.7 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations for a 1.6 million-barrel drop.? Distillate stockpiles , which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 0.3 million barrels in the week to 116.7 million barrels, versus expectations for a 1.5 million-barrel drop, the EIA data showed. Net U.S. crude imports fell last week by 499,000 bpd, the EIA said. (Reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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