Well, the DOE report was mixed.
Here are some highlights:
**Gasoline stockpiles added 1.7 million barrels, compared to the 1 million barrels analysts were predicting.
**Oil stockpiles added 1 million barrels, compared to the 400,000 expected by analysts.
**Gasoline demand is STILL up 1.0% over a year ago! DEMAND MUST DROP OR WE’RE IN TROUBLE!
**Gasoline imports averaged over 1.5 million barrels last week! (Usually around 1 million barrels- high prices are encouraging companies to send gasoline from overseas refineries)
Bad things:
**Refinery utilization was under what was expected- 89.8% was expected, and the actual number was 89.5%
**Midwest PADD storage fell to 46.6 million barrels, nearly the same as it was two weeks ago.
For the future:
BP has said it will have its Toledo, Ohio refinery back at capacity by this weekend. At this time it is in the process of being restarted (this process takes days)
Prediction: local prices should come down a bit; the $3.49 was perhaps a bit overdone. Look for $3.2X to become widespread. Wholesale prices today should fall or stay flat.
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