(Reuters) - U.S. crude stocks fell more than expected last week, while fuel stocks rose in a pre-holiday rebound from drawdowns that occurred during the Colonial Pipeline outage, the Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.
Crude inventories fell by 5.1 million barrels in the week ended May 28, compared with analysts' expectations for an decrease of 2.4 million barrels.
Gasoline stocks rose by 1.5 million barrels, contrary to expectations for a 1.5 million-barrel drop. Gasoline product supplied, a measure of demand, fell 3.5% to 9.1 million barrels per day.
"It looks like some of that Colonial Pipeline panic buying weighed on implied demand on the week so folks had plenty of gas in the tank ahead of Memorial Day," said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York. The three-day Memorial Day weekend is considered the traditional start of the U.S. summer vacation driving season.
Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 3.7 million barrels, versus expectations for a 1.5 million barrel drop.
Refinery crude runs rose by 358,000 barrels per day, while refinery utilization rates rose by 1.7 percentage points.
U.S. crude futures futures for July delivery fell 42 cents to $68.41 a barrel at 11:29 a.m. EDT (1529 GMT), while Brent fell 49 cents to $70.86 a barrel.
Net U.S. crude imports rose last week by 247,000 barrels per day.
Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub rose by 784,000 barrels, EIA said.