1.   After the markets closed, the API said that heating oil and gasoline inventories rose last week while crude stocks fell.

2.   Crude stocks are also above levels last year, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

3.   Forecasts for record gasoline demand in the U.S. this summer have heightened concerns that crude stocks will keep falling as refiners boost their gasoline production.

4.   Most analysts expected crude stocks to fall.

5.   Some analysts said crude stocks rose partly because refiners replenished inventories after running them down in December for tax purposes.

6.   That could reduce crude stocks even more and drive both crude and gasoline prices even higher.

7.   Crude oil and products futures may have fallen even more, except for a lightly bullish drawdown in crude stocks in the inventory data, analysts said.

8.   Expectations of a build in crude stocks added to downward pressure, analysts said.

9.   Gasoline stocks rose in both reports, but like the build in crude stocks, the increase in gasoline inventories was shrugged off by traders, analysts said.

10.   In data that contributed to the price slippage Wednesday, the Department of Energy reported that U.S. crude stocks rose last week.