WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. commercial crude oil inventories increased unexpectedly last week while supplies of gasoline and distillates declined, the Energy Department reported Wednesday in its weekly inventory survey.

    In the week ended Sept. 28, the nation's commercial crude oil inventories rose by 1.2 million barrels to 321.8 million, defying the 400,000 barrel drop expected by analysts.

    Gasoline stockpiles, however, fell by 100,000 barrels last week to 191.3 million. Analysts had been forecasting gasoline supplies to grow by 400,000 barrels.

    Meanwhile, supplies of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, decreased by 1.2 million barrels to 135.9 million. Analysts were expecting distillates to gain by 700,000 barrels last week.

    The report also showed that U.S. refinery utilization rose by 0.6 percentage points to 87.5 percent of capacity last week. The gain was bigger than the 0.4 percentage point increase expected by analysts.

    U.S. crude imports declined by an average of 189,000 barrels a day last week to 10.25 million, while gasoline imports rose by 102,000 barrels to 1.15 million barrels a day.

    Last week, gasoline demand declined to 9.12 million barrels a day, 115,000 barrels lower than the previous week.

    The figures for commercial crude oil inventories do not include the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which currently holds crude oil of about 6.93 million barrels.