The Energy Information Administration reported on Thursday that the U.S. crude stockpiles increased while gasoline and distillate stocks fell as a result of seasonal maintenance at refineries, which led to a lower processing.

The EIA reported that crude inventories increased by 4.6 millions barrels, to 432.5million barrels for the week ending February 14. This was compared to analysts' expectations based on a poll of a 3.1million-barrel increase.

Crude oil stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma's delivery hub, rose by 1.5 millions barrels in the last week.

U.S. crude futures and global crude prices extended gains after the report. West Texas Intermediate crude oil (WTI), which is traded at $73 per barrel, was up 75 cents by 12:14 pm EST (1314 GMT), and Brent gained 90 cents.

John Kilduff of Again Capital, New York, said that "the low refinery run rate still contributes to this backlog in crude oil supplies." He added that the low utilization also contributed to reducing gasoline inventories.

Refineries just aren't producing as much gas as we expected.

The week saw a drop of 0.1 percentage points in utilization rates, bringing the total capacity to 84.9%.

The EIA reported that gasoline stocks dropped by 151,000 barrels and now stand at 247.9 millions barrels. This is a far cry from the 6,000 barrels expected.

The EIA reported that distillate stocks, which includes diesel and heating oil fell by 2.1 millions barrels to 116.6million barrels. This was compared with a forecast of 1.6 million barrels.

The EIA reported that net U.S. crude exports increased by 472,000 bpd last week, while imports decreased by 961,000. Reporting by Arathy S. Somasekhar, Houston. Editing by Marguerita C. Choy

(source: Reuters)