U.S. crude stocks, gasoline and distillate inventories fell last week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
Crude inventories fell by 6.2 million barrels to 459.5 million barrels in the week ended April 24, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 231,000-barrel draw.
Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub dropped by 796,000 barrels in the week, the EIA said.
Oil futures briefly extended gains following the larger-than-expected inventory draw, rising about 5%. Global Brent crude futures were at $116.85 a barrel, up $5.59 at 10:38 a.m. ET (1438 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were up $4.74 a barrel, at $104.67.
Refinery crude runs rose by 84,000 barrels per day in the week, the EIA said, while utilization rates increased by 0.5 percentage point in the week.
U.S. gasoline stocks fell by 6.1 million barrels in the week to 222.3 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.1 million-barrel draw.
Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 4.5 million barrels in the week to 103.6 million barrels, versus expectations for a 2.2 million-barrel drop, the EIA data showed.
Net U.S. crude imports dropped by 1.97 million barrels per day, the EIA said.
(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver and Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing by Rod Nickel)