Crude oil supplies rise by 1.9 million barrels (AP)

NEW YORK – The nation's crude oil and gasoline supplies rose last week, the government said Wednesday.

Crude supplies increased by 1.9 million barrels, or 0.8 percent, to 341 million barrels, which is 4.7 percent below year-ago levels, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report.

Analysts expected supplies to be unchanged for the week ended Sept. 23, according to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

Gasoline supplies rose by 800,000 barrels, or 0.4 percent, to 214.9 million barrels. That was less than analysts expected and 3.5 percent below year-ago levels.

Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended Sept. 23 was 2.4 percent lower than a year earlier, averaging 8.9 million barrels a day.

Refineries ran at 87.8 percent of total capacity on average, a decline of 0.5 percentage point from the prior week. Analysts expected capacity to fall to 87.3 percent.

Supplies of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 100,000 barrels to 157.7 million barrels. Analysts expected distillate stocks to increase by 1 million barrels.

Crude oil fell $1.42 to $83.03 per barrel in morning trading in New York.

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