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United States crude stockpiles increase, sustain draws on low refining levels - EIA

U.S. petroleum stockpiles rose while gasoline and distillate stocks fell last week as refiners performed at listed below seasonal lows due to planned and unexpected outages, the Energy Information Administration stated on Wednesday.

Crude stocks rose for the fifth consecutive week, increasing by 4.2 million barrels to 447.2 million barrels in the week ending Feb. 23, the EIA said, compared to analysts' expectations in a survey for a 2.7 million-barrel rise.

Stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, shipment center for U.S. unrefined futures increased by 1.5 million barrels recently to 31 million barrels, the EIA said.

Brent oil and West Texas Intermediate unrefined futures were little bit changed after the information was released.

Unplanned refinery failures following a winter season storm in January, together with planned plant turn-arounds, has actually kept refining running listed below the 10-year seasonal average. Refineries have run below 83% usage rates for the previous month, their longest streak in almost 3 years.

Recently, refinery crude runs edged up by 100,000 barrels each day, and refinery usage rates rose by 0.9 percentage point to 81.5% of total capacity.

The refining activity was absolutely showing that we are still running at historically low levels, said Phil Flynn, expert at Price Futures Group.

Fuel stocks fell for a 4th consecutive week, decreasing by 2.8 million barrels to 244.2 million barrels, nearly double projections for a 1.5 million-barrel draw.?

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, were down by 510,000 barrels to 121.1 million barrels, versus expectations for a 2.1 million-barrel drop, the information revealed.

An outage beginning at the beginning of February at the 435,000-bpd

Whiting center

in Indiana, the Midwest's largest refinery, has contributed to the product draws and unrefined builds.

If this pattern continues for the next 6 to 8 weeks, we could see gas stocks tighten up as we go into the driving season, stated Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston.

Stocks of gas were about 2% below the five-year average for this time of year, while distillates were about 8% below the five-year average for this time of year, the EIA stated.

The four-week average of petroleum item provided, a proxy for need, fell to the most affordable since January 2023, EIA data showed.

Net U.S. crude imports fell by 32,000 bpd, the EIA said.