New York (Platts)--5Oct2009/554 pm EDT/2154 GMT

US crude inventories should show a build of 1.9 million barrels for the week ending October 2 when weekly statistics are published later this week, as refinery runs remain low and imports high, analysts polled by Platts said Monday.

The American Petroleum Institute will publish its weekly statistics on Tuesday afternoon, with the US Energy Information Administration following Wednesday morning.

Analysts were expecting refinery utilization to average 84.51% of capacity, almost unchanged from the prior week's 84.57%. Weak refinery margins should keep crude runs low.

Crude imports are expected to remain around the 9.5 million b/d as a narrow front-month NYMEX crude contango lures barrels from offshore floating storage. The November/December spread settled at minus 38 cents/barrel October 2, although the spread could widen if refinery margins remain weak, signaling low demand for crude.

"As the crack differentials narrow, the likelihood that the front of the crude curve will be pulled lower tends to increase," energy analyst Jim Ritterbusch said in a report.

Analysts were looking for gasoline inventories to climb 1.3 million barrels and distillate inventories to climb 400,000 barrels. Production for both is not expected to increase, although some analysts were expecting seasonal distillate demand to increase enough to result in an inventory draw.

The market rallied last Wednesday after the EIA reported a US gasoline inventory draw and a crude draw at Cushing, Oklahoma, home of the NYMEX crude contract delivery point. But analysts were not looking for a repeat in this week's figures.

"We will be looking for last week's reported gasoline stock draw of about 1.6 (million barrels) to be negated by an equivalent-sized build in this week's data release, a development that could take the steam out of the bullish gasoline leadership of the past few sessions," Ritterbusch said.

--Jeff Mower, jeff_mower@platts.com