EIA weekly Oil inventory numbers
* Crude stocks rise 860,000 barrels to 345.92 mln
* Gasoline stocks rise 205,000 barrels to 241.1 mln
* Cushing inventories up 250,000 bbls at 37.66 mln
* Distillates fall 3.1 mln barrels to 161.27 mln
* Refinery utilization falls 3.5 percentage points
- The data "was bullish across the board, with crude and gasoline stocks rising less than expected and distillates stocks declining more than expected," said Chris Jarvis of Caprock Risk Management in New Hampshire.
- Inventories at the key Cushing, Oklahoma terminal rose a modest 250,000 barrels to 37.66 million barrels. Cushing is the delivery point for the New York Mercantile Exchange's benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude futures.
"Demand numbers have picked up slightly, but they are not supportive enough to snap the kind of slide we saw in WTI in the last two weeks, especially with a small gain in Cushing," said Gene McGillian of Tradition Energy in Connecticut.
- U.S. average gasoline demand was unchanged from year-ago levels during