Is the “June Slowdown” starting on gasoline markets?

It’s been a while since I wrote here folks, but it seems prices have been “somewhat” steady around our region, and quite steady (what a surprise!!) in Grand Rapids.

If you read my previous post about the Summer Forecast, you’ll have a better idea where this post fits in the big picture.

Of course my writing was prompted by the Weekly DOE Report released today at 10:30am EDT.

Let me highlight some of the good news from that report for you that will help push prices (gasoline) lower:

  • Refineries operated at 89.7% of capacity last week. This number is higher than previous weeks and is necessary to produce enough product for the Summer Driving Season
  • Gasoline production and Distillate (Diesel) production rose compared to the last week, averaging 9.1 million barrels and 4.5 million barrels per day, respectively.
  • Gasoline inventories rose by 2.9 million barrels last week, much higher than expected
  • Distillate (Diesel) inventories rose by 2.3 million barrels last week, higher than expected
  • Propane inventories increased by 2.3 million barrels last week, wow!
  • Total inventories rose just 200,000 barrels last week, but most of that was due to a large drop (4.8mb) in oil inventories
  • Total demand of petroleum products has averaged 20.4 million barrels per day, down 1.1% compared to last year.
  • Gasoline demand as averaged 9.3 million barrels per day, down 1.4% compared to last year.

The only real downfall to this otherwise good report was the large draw-down in oil inventories (4.8 million barrels), but that’ll happen in Summer when refineries are trying hard.

Crude oil inventories are now over 40 million barrels below what they were a year ago (347.7mb compared to today’s 306.8mb) which definitely could use some improvement from OPEC.

The Midwest PADD’s storage rose last week from 48.6 million barrels to 49.3, which is good news, but could have been better. Perhaps our prices will fall a bit more than the rest of the nation.

Overall, a good report. Wholesale gasoline and diesel prices are really taking a beating in early morning trading after this great report came out. Gasoline at last check was down nearly 10-cents a gallon while Diesel was down nearly 8-cents per gallon. Crude was roughly $2 lower to $122.50.

We should see Grand Rapids prices slowly come down if the market holds negative. We could see as low as $3.85 in the next week, so don’t be too quick to fill up… PRICES WILL BE COMING DOWN (ugh, although we’re still talking just 15 cents south of $4… sad!) pending today’s closing numbers.

Patrick

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