foreign news on april 19, data released by the us energy information administration (eia) on wednesday showed that us crude oil and distillate inventories fell, while gasoline inventories unexpectedly increased.
u.s. crude inventories fell by 4.6 million barrels in the week to april 14 to 465.97 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations for a drop of 1.1 million barrels.
crude inventories at cushing, oklahoma, fell by 1.09 million barrels for the week.
refinery crude oil processing increased by 259,000 barrels per day, and refinery capacity utilization increased by 1.7 percentage points to 91%.
gasoline inventories rose by 1.3 million barrels to 223.54 million barrels this week, compared with analysts' expectations for a decrease of 1.3 million barrels.
distillate stockpiles, which include heating oil and diesel, fell by 356,000 barrels to 112.09 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations for a drop of 900,000 barrels.
eia said net u.s. crude oil imports fell by 1.74 million barrels per day.
