⁍ U.S. crude stocks fell by 2 million barrels in the week to Sept. 25 to 492.4 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said.

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⁍ distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 3.2 million barrels.

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⁍ Prices were little changed at 10:52 a.m. ET (1452 GMT), Brent LCOc1 was down 0.6%, or 24 cents, to $40.79 a barrel, while U.S. crude CLc1 rose 33 cents to $39.63 a barrel.

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– US crude oil inventories fell by 2 million barrels in the week ending Sept. 25 to 492.4 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said today. Analysts had expected a 1.6 million-barrel rise, Reuters reports. exports rose while imports fell, helping facilitate the drawdown. “The export number for crude was big … and then the flip side of that was the imports were slack,” said John Kilduff, partner at Again Capital in New York. “That combination drove the decline in crude oil inventories in a big way because the utilization rate is still anemic even though it did tick up.” Distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 3.2 million barrels in the week versus analysts’ expectations for a 917,000-barrel drop. gasoline stocks rose by 683,000 barrels in the week to 228.2 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with analysts’ expectations for a 1.1 million-barrel drop. Product supplied, a proxy for fuel demand, dropped in the most recent week, particularly due to a falloff in distillate demand, though gasoline product supplied rose modestly. Prices were little changed. “Refiners are starting to tick up activity a bit, gasoline demand was solid. It shows the trend of tightening supply in the US,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.