U.S. oil inventories drop unexpectedly: EIA

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil stocks fell unexpectedly last week as imports dropped, while gasoline and distillate supplies also posted surprise falls as refiners cutting output, weekly government data on Wednesday showed.

Commercial crude oil supplies in the United States fell 400,000 barrels to 320.4 million barrels in the week to November 28, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said, compared with analysts' projections of a rise of 1.7 million barrels.

Crude imports fell 1.46 million barrels per day (bpd).

Supplies of distillates, which include diesel and heating oil, came in at 125 million barrels, down 1.7 million barrels for the week, EIA noted. This countered forecasts of an average build of 300,000 barrel. U.S. heating oil supplies logged a larger 2.1 million barrel fall to 39.6 million barrels.

Gasoline inventories were off 1.6 million barrels to 198.9 million, compared with forecasts of a 900,000 barrel rise.

Refinery production fell during the week as utilization fell 1.9 percentage points to 84.3 percent last week while analysts had anticipated a rise of 0.2 percentage point. Gasoline output was off 246,000 bpd while distillates production fell by 295,000 bpd.

Demand for refined fuels also fell, as total product demand over the past four weeks was down 6.2 percent compared with year ago levels, EIA added.

(Reporting by Haitham Haddadin; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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