Crude oil supplies grow by 1.7 million barrels

The nation's crude oil supplies rose last week, while gasoline supplies dropped, the government said Wednesday.

Crude inventories grew by 1.7 million barrels, or 0.5 percent, to 350.6 million barrels, which is 1.9 percent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.

Analysts expected an increase of 2.1 million barrels for the week ended March 11, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline supplies fell by 4.2 million barrels, or 1.8 percent, to 225 million barrels. That was about what analysts expected and 1 percent above year-ago levels.

Demand for gasoline over the last four weeks was 1.4 percent higher than a year earlier, averaging nearly 9.1 million barrels a day.

U.S. refineries ran at 83.4 percent of total capacity on average, a rise of 1.2 percentage points from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to be unchanged at 82 percent.

Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 2.6 million barrels to 152.6 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to drop by 1.4 million barrels.

Crude prices rose $1.22 to $98.39 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

(Source: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9M0D4A01.htm)