U.S. oil inventories fell across the board last week on higher crude exports and gasoline demand, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on July 24.

Crude inventories fell by 3.7 MMbbl to 436.5 MMbbl in the week ended July 19, the EIA said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.6 MMbbl draw.

Net U.S. crude imports USOICI=ECI fell last week by 388,000 bbl/d to 2.7 MMbbl/d, as exports rose 222,000 bbl/d to 4.2 MMbbl/d.

Stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub for U.S. crude futures declined by 1.7 MMbbl, the EIA said.

Oil futures were up following the report, with Brent for September delivery rising 99 cents to $82.00/bbl by 11:39 a.m. EDT. U.S. crude gained $1.04, or 1.4%, to $78.00/bbl.

Some of the stock drawdowns could be attributed to normalizing operations following an Atlantic storm that hit the U.S. state of Texas, which is the country's crude oil production and refining hub, earlier this month, analysts said.

"Higher crude exports, lower refinery runs (impact from Hurricane) and rebounding implied demand were the driver of those large draws," said UBS analyst, Giovanni Staunovo.

Refinery crude runs fell by 521,000 bbl/d, and refinery utilization rates by 2.1 percentage points to 91.6% of capacity.

Gasoline stocks fell by 5.6 MMbbl in the week to 227.4 MMbbl, the EIA said, far exceeding expectations for a 400,000-bbl draw.

Product supplied of gasoline, EIA's measure of demand, rose by 673,000 bbl/d, the biggest weekly increase since November 2023, to 9.46 MMbbl/d, the most for this time of the year since 2021's record high of over 10 MMbbl/d, the data showed.​

Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 2.8 MMbbl to 125.3 MMbbl, versus expectations for a 250,000-bbl build, the EIA data showed.

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