U.S. crude oil stockpiles are expected to have fallen for a fourth consecutive week, while distillates inventories were seen rising, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Tuesday.

Five analysts polled by Reuters estimated on average that crude inventories dropped by around 733,000 barrels in the week to Sept. 2.

The poll was conducted ahead of reports from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, due at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 GMT) on Wednesday, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, due at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on Thursday. Both sets of data were delayed a day due to the Labor Day federal holiday on Monday.

Crude inventories fell by 3.3 million barrels in the week to Aug. 26 to 418.3 million barrels, a steeper decline than the 1.5 million-barrel drop forecasters predicted in a Reuters poll.

Analysts estimated stockpiles of gasoline fell by about 1.6 million barrels last week.

Distillate inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, were expected to have risen 850,000 barrels last week.

The rate of refinery utilization was seen down 0.8 percentage point from 92.7% of total capacity for the week ended Aug. 26, the poll found.

All figures for fuel stocks are in millions of barrels. Refinery runs change is measured in percentage points.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Swati Verma and Bharat Govind Gautam in Bengaluru; Editing by Richard Chang)