The other major energy commodities also rallied after the weekly inventory report. Heating oil jumped about eight cents to $3.89 per gallon, unleaded gasoline added about eight cents to $3.40 per gallon, and natural gas climbed 21 cents to $12.69 per million BTUs.

U.S. crude oil inventories now stand at 302.2 million barrels and are at the lower boundary of the average range for this time of year, the EIA said. Oil imports averaged about 9.7 million barrels per day last week, down about 98,000 barrels per day from the previous week.

Also, refineries operated at 88.6% of their operable capacity last week, a decrease from the 89.7% statistic registered for the week ending May 30, 2008.

Oil Analysis: If past is prologue, oil's recent pull-back should be over, unless the market looks beyond the fourth consecutive decline in weekly oil inventories and emphasizes the weekly gain in gasoline supplies. But the latter is not likely, given the focus on oil inventory supplies in conjunction with rising international (emerging market) oil demand. Traders are likely to interpret this week's report as another sign of continued tight oil supplies, globally -- making, as one trader put it, the shorting of oil a tactic for the courageous only.