quarters of the nation's heating oil as the biggest global market for that type of fuel. But while a winter storm batters some midwestern states en route to the Northeast later this week, some analysts believe temperatures are not expected to fall low enough to drive a rebound in prices. Traders are awaiting the weekly summary on Wednesday of U.S. crude inventories, an indicator of demand from the world's largest energy consumer. Ten energy analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires forecast a rise in distillate stocks of 595,000 barrels on average, while gasoline stocks were expected to climb by 755,000 barrels on average. Distillate inventories include heating oil and diesel fuel. Refinery utilization was expected to show another significant increase, with nine of the 10 analysts projecting runs to increase anywhere from 0.25 of a percentage point to 2 percentage points above last week's 88.1 percent of operable capacity. Crude inventories were expected to fall about 220,000 barrels in government and industry data this week, according to the average estimate of analysts.
