Commercial crude oil stockpiles rose by 95,000 barrels. Analysts were expecting a build of 500,000 barrels. U.S. crude oil inventories edged up in a fourth consecutive weekly increase as both imports and exports fell and production held steady, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Commercial crude oil stocks excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve rose by 95,000 barrels to 428.9 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 21 and were about 1% above the five-year average for the time of year, the EIA said. Crude stocks were expected to have risen by 500,000 barrels, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of analysts.

Oil stored in the SPR fell by 3.7 million barrels to 289.7 million barrels on continuing emergency releases. Oil stocks at Cushing, Okla., the Nymex delivery hub, were up by 1.2 million barrels at 22.4 million barrels. The EIA estimated U.S. crude oil production at 13.8 million barrels a day, up by 13,000 barrels a day from the previous week.

Crude oil imports fell by 435,000 barrels a day to 6.2 million barrels a day, and exports were down by 274,000 barrels a day at 3.8 million barrels a day. Refineries ran at 97.4% of capacity, up from 97.2% the week before, with crude input to refineries virtually unchanged at 17.4 million barrels a day. Gasoline inventories declined by 2.5 million barrels to 206.8 million barrels, and were 6% below the five-year average. Distillate fuel stocks fell by 2.2 million barrels to 103.4 million barrels.