U.S. crude oil, gasoline stocks fall unexpectedly: EIA

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil stocks fell unexpectedly last week, their first drop in 10 weeks, as imports decreased, the federal Energy Information Administration said in weekly data released Wednesday.

Gasoline stocks fell as refiners slowed production.

EIA said crude inventories in the United States fell 4.7 million barrels to 370.6 million barrels in the week ended May 8, countering a 1.4-million-barrel increase forecast by analysts polled by Reuters.

The surprise drop came as imports fell 1.21 million barrels per day to 8.71 million bpd. U.S. crude oil rose about $1 after the data was released to a session high of $59.90 per barrel before pulling back.

"The amazing run over the last months on building crude stocks had to come to an end," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading in Chicago.

"We're starting to feel the impact of OPEC production cuts, and oil has gone to Europe as higher Brent prices have been attracting imports that would normally have gone to the United States," Flynn added.

Gasoline supplies decreased 4.1 million barrels to 208.3 million barrels versus a forecast for a 200,000-barrel build, as gasoline output declined 208,000 bpd on the week.

U.S. refinery utilization fell 1.6 percentage points to 83.7 percent of capacity, while analysts had forecast a 0.3 percentage point gain.

Gasoline demand in the United States over the past 4 weeks averaged 9.03 million bpd, down 1.2 percent from a year ago, the report noted.

"Gasoline demand was still down ... there's just not that much incentive to ramp (refineries) up too far," said Amanda Kurzendoerfer, commodities analyst at Summit Energy in Louisville, Kentucky.

Year-to-year, total gasoline inventories are a little below the year-ago level of 209.4 million barrels. Crude oil supplies, however, remain well above the 315.2 million barrels logged at the same time last year.

Near-term, the crude drawdown "will give fuel to the bulls in their push to drive the market through 60 dollars," said Gene McGillian, an analyst with Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut.

"We were at a 19-year high in domestic crude oil stocks," he said. "If it looks like they are starting to eat away at that glut in storage, it could be supportive to the market in the near term until we see whether the economy is really improving."

Stockpiles of distillates, which include diesel and heating oil, gained 1 million barrels last week to 147.5 million barrels against a forecast 1.3-million-barrel increase, the EIA reported.

On Tuesday, American Petroleum Institute said in its own weekly data that U.S. crude stocks dropped 3.1 million barrels last week, while crude imports declined 985,000 bpd. The industry group said gasoline stocks fell 2 million barrels while distillates declined 1.8 million barrels.

(Reporting by Haitham Haddadin; Additional reporting by Tim Gardner and Gene Ramos; Editing by John Picinich)