The day’s focal point was the weekly inventory report from the Energy Information Administration. Crude inventories rose 200,000 barrels for the week ended May 9, the EIA said.
Gasoline supplies fell more than expected last week, the EIA report showed, down 1.7 million barrels, while distillate inventories, which include heating oil and jet fuel, climbed 1.4 million barrels. But the refinery utilization rate stood at 86.6% of capacity last week, up from 85.0% a week earlier.

“Although the DOE numbers were slightly disappointing to traders’ estimates, we still had a build in crude supplies and perhaps more importantly, saw a large increase in refinery utilization rates,” said Thomas Hartmann, of Altavest Worldwide Trading.

“We’ve seen the crack spread widen materially in the last two weeks, which should encourage more gasoline production over the coming weeks as refiners see better profit margins,” Hartmann added.

Source: Crude Backs Down