NEW YORK (AP) -- Energy futures rose but retreated from earlier highs Tuesday after the government reported a surprisingly large drop in crude oil inventories and accompanying declines in gasoline supplies and refinery activity.Light, sweet crude for October delivery rose 39 cents to $78.62 on the New York Mercantile Exchange after setting a new trading high of $79.29 soon after the report's release. October gasoline fell 0.61 cent to $1.975 a gallon.
Heating oil futures fell 0.31 cent to $2.1796 a gallon on the Nymex, while natural gas futures gained 24.8 cents to $6.182 per 1,000 cubic feet on a National Hurricane Center forecast that a tropical weather system in the Atlantic could strengthen into a tropical depression later today.
In London, October Brent crude gained 57 cents to $76.95 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange.
In its weekly report on petroleum inventories, the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration said crude oil supplies fell by 7.1 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 7, more than twice the 2.7 million-barrel decline analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires, on average, had expected. Gasoline inventories fell by 700,000 barrels, slightly more than the expected 500,000 barrel decline.
Refinery utilization fell by 1.6 percentage points to 90.5 percent of capacity. Analysts had expected a 0.1 percentage point decline. And inventories of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, grew by 1.8 million barrels, more than the 1.4 million-barrel increase analysts had expected.
Crude imports fell by 674,000 barrels a day on average last week to 9.56 million barrels, while gasoline imports fell an average of 298,000 barrels a day to 1.02 million barrels a day.
Demand for gasoline averaged about 9.6 million barrels a day over the last four weeks, about 0.9 percent above last year, EIA said.