The U.S. government said Wednesday that the nation's crude oil supplies increased last week. The Energy Information Administration said that crude oil supplies grew by 3.6 million barrels, or 1.1 percent, to 334.8 million barrels. That is 1.7 percent below levels from one year ago. According to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill, analysts had expected an increase of 700,000 barrels for the week ended January 20. Gasoline supplies declined by 400,000 barrels, or 0.2 percent, to 227.1 million barrels, which is 1.3 percent less than one year ago. Analysts expected gasoline supplies to increase by 2.2 million barrels. Demand for gasoline over the four weeks ended January 20 was 6.4 percent lower than a year ago, averaging 8.2 million barrels per day. Refineries ran at 82.2 percent of total capacity on average, which is down 1.5 percentage points from the previous week. Analysts had predicted a similar figure. Supplies of distillate fuel, which include diesel and heating oil, fell by 2.5 million barrels to 145.5 million barrels, while analysts had expected it to rise.