U.S. crude inventories decreased by about 5.2 million barrels for the week ended Aug. 9, compared with a build of 180,000 barrels reported by the API for the previous week. Economists were expecting a decline of about 2 million barrels.
Gasoline stockpiles fell by 3.7M barrels, while distillate inventories -- the class of fuels that includes diesel and heating oil -- increased by 612,000 barrels.