API SAYS U.S. CRUDE OIL OUPUT OFF FROM YEAR AGO The American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. crude oil production in February declined 9.8 pct from year-ago levels to about 8.3 mln barrels a day. In its monthly report on U.S. oil supplies and stocks, API said that domestic demand for petroleum products, as measured by products supplied, continued to rise reaching 16.3 mln barrels a day in the month, up 1.5 pct from February 1986. API noted the drop in crude oil output coupled with a drop in natural gas liquids production, which was off 11 pct from February 1986 levels, represented a decline in U.S. production of more than one mln barrels a day. API said the decline in domestic production and the rise in demand brought petroleum imports to about six mln barrels a day in February, a 30.3 pct increase from last year's level. So far this year, API said growth in domestic demand, which was up 2.9 pct from last year's year-to-date level, has slowed in comparison to the accelerated growth in the last half of 1986. It said crude oil production for the first two months of 1987 was off 8.6 pct from the comparable year-ago period while crude imports were up 30.6 pct.