US Cash Products - Gasoline up as supplies fall

NEW YORK, April 2 (Reuters) - Cash gasoline values rose in the U.S. Gulf Coast, the New York Harbor and parts of the Midwest on Wednesday following a big drop in the nation's stockpiles of the fuel last week, traders said.

Trade was thin in cash markets east of the Rockies, especially in distillates as differentials adjusted to the move to the weaker May NYMEX futures as the benchmark for the Midwest and New York Harbor earlier this week.

U.S. gasoline inventories fell by 4.5 million barrels to 224.7 million barrels last week, their third weekly decline following an 18-week streak of builds, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported.

Stockpiles of distillate fuels, which include heating oil, diesel and jet fuel, fell 1.6 million barrels to 109.7 million barrels last week -- the eighth straight weekly decline, the EIA weekly report added.

Meanwhile, crude oil stocks in the United States surged by 7.4 million barrels last week, as domestic refiners ran their plants at just 82.4 percent of capacity, close to the slowest level since 2005, according to the data.

In refinery news, Citgo is restarting a sulfur recovery unit at the west plant of its Corpus Christi, Texas refinery after completing planned maintenance, it said in a filing on Tuesday with Texas environmental regulators. [ID:nN01286878]

NYMEX crude fell after the EIA report was issued, with the May contract CLK8 briefly falling below $100 a barrel.

For NYMEX reports click [O/N]

For a list of refinery outages, click [REF/US]