<div id="subtitle">Energy Dept. says crude oil inventories, gas stockpiles rose last week</div><div><p>Crude inventories and gasoline supplies rose last week, the government said Wednesday.</p><p>Crude inventories rose by 3.7 million barrels, or 1.1 percent, to 331 million barrels, which is 0.3 percent below year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.</p><p>Analysts expected a build of 1.9 million barrels for the week ended Jan. 8, according to a survey by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.</p><p>Gasoline inventories rose by 3.8 million barrels, or 1.7 percent, to 223.5 million barrels. That was above analysts' expectations and 4.2 percent above year-ago levels.</p><p>Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Jan. 8 was 0.4 percent higher than a year earlier, averaging nearly 8.9 million barrels a day.</p><p>At the same time, U.S. refineries ran at 81.3 percent of total capacity on average, a drop of 1.4 percent from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to hold at 79.9 percent.</p><p>Inventories of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 1.4 million barrels to 160.4 million barrels for the week ended Jan. 8. Analysts expected distillate stocks to drop by 1.7 million barrels.</p><p>Crude prices fell $2.14 to $78.65 per barrel in morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=66829967&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

Copyright 2010  <a href="http://www.ap.org">AP News</a></div></div>