U.S. crude oil stocks fell last week while gasoline and distillate inventories rose more than anticipated, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Crude inventories USOILC=ECI fell 4.9 million barrels in the week to Jan. 5, compared with analysts’ expectations for a fall of 3.9 million barrels. Oil prices dipped on the news before recovering. The decline in crude stocks fell short of industry group the American Petroleum Institute, which reported an 11 million-barrel crude draw on Tuesday evening. In addition, refining runs fell, pulling back from a 12-year-high in capacity utilization, and stocks of gasoline and distillates like diesel rose. However, U.S. production dropped sharply, though those figures are not considered as reliable as monthly data, which is released with a lag. U.S. production fell 290,000 barrels per day to 9.5 million bpd, the EIA said. “There must be a special factor at play, perhaps the […]