U.S. crude stockpiles dip, gasoline builds amid weak fuel demand

U.S. crude oil and distillate inventories fell last week, while gasoline stocks rose in another weak showing for fuel demand, the Energy Information Administration said.

Refinery runs and crude production both fell sharply, however, which analysts attributed to ongoing disruptions from Hurricane Delta.

Crude inventories fell by 1 million barrels in the week to Oct. 16 to 488.1 million barrels, in line with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll.

Production of crude fell sharply last week to 9.9 million barrels per day from 10.5 million bpd, which was in part due to offshore facilities shutting for part of the week due to the hurricane.

Overall product supplied, a proxy for demand, was lower as well, and remained down 13% on the year and over the past four weeks when compared with the year-ago period.

Refinery crude runs fell by 551,000 bpd in the last week, the EIA said, and refinery utilization rates USOIRU=ECI fell by 2.2 percentage points to 72.9% of capacity.

U.S. gasoline stocksrose by 1.9 million barrels in the week, the EIA said, compared with expectations for a 1.8 million-barrel drop.

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 3.8 million barrels to 160.7 million barrels, more than double the forecast for a 1.7 million-barrel drop, the EIA data showed.