By Agence France-Presse U.S. commercial inventories of crude oil and gasoline slipped last week, a government survey showed Aug. 18. Stocks of distillates -- heating oil and diesel -- rose. Crude oil inventories in the week to Aug. 13 dropped 1.3 million barrels to 293 million, the U.S. Energy Department said. Gasoline stocks declined 2.6 million barrels to 205.7 million. Distillates -- mostly diesel and heating oil -- climbed 2.1 million barrels to 124.6 million. Diesel rose by 800,000 barrels to 74.1 million. Heating oil climbed 1.3 million barrels to 48.8 million. A parallel survey by the American Petroleum Institute found that crude oil stocks eased 1.5 million barrels to 292.8 million and gasoline slumped 3.5 million barrels to 206.9 million, but distillates rose 1.6 million barrels to 123.1 million. The crude oil reserves data exclude the 666.4-million-barrel U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an emergency supply stored in huge underground salt caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004
