US crude oil supplies down by 900,000 barrels

The nation's crude oil and gasoline supplies declined last week, according to government data.Crude supplies dropped by 900,000 barrels, or 0.2 percent, to 358.6 million barrels,

which is 0.1 percent above year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.
Analysts expected a decline of 2.5 million barrels for the week ended July 1, according to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.
Gasoline supplies fell by 600,000 barrels, or 0.3 percent, to 212.5 million barrels. That was 3.1 percent below year-ago levels. Analysts expected supplies to increase by 500,000 barrels.
Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended July 1 was 0.6 percent lower than a year ago, averaging 9.3 million barrels a day.
U.S. refineries ran at 88.4 percent of total capacity on average, an increase of 0.3 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to rise to 88.2 percent.
Supplies of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 200,000 barrels to 142.1 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to rise by 1.1 million barrels.
Source: Associated Press