NEW YORK, Oct 11 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil stocks rose last week while distillate inventories fell more sharply than forecast, government data showed on Thursday.
Domestic stocks of crude rose by 1.67 million barrels in the week to Oct. 5, the Energy Information Administration reported, as imports rose. Analysts polled by Reuters ahead of the data release had forecast a stock gain of 800,000 barrels.
Imports of crude rose by 115,000 barrels per day to almost 8.2 million bpd during the week.
U.S. distillate stocks, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 3.18 million barrels in the week, well above analysts' average forecast for a decline of 500,000 barrels.
Stockpiles of the fuel on the East Coast, home to the world's largest heating oil market, fell by 1.7 million barrels.
U.S. gasoline inventories fell by 534,000 barrels, against expectations they would be unchanged on the week.
Demand in the world's largest consumer continued to drop, with gasoline use over the four weeks to Oct. 5 down 3.3 percent from year-earlier levels while distillate demand was off 3.5 percent.
Refinery utilization fell by 1.5 percentage point to 86.7 percent of capacity.
Stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point of the U.S. crude oil future, rose by 300,000 barrels to 44.17 million barrels.
U.S. crude futures
largely held gains after the data, trading up $1.22 at $92.47 a barrel at 11:08 am EDT (1508 GMT).
(Reporting By David Sheppard; Editing by David Gregorio)
((d.sheppard@thomsonreuters.com)(+1 646 223 6057)(Reuters Messaging: d.sheppard.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: ENERGY STOCKS/EIA