The Weekly DOE Report was just released. Highlights and comments are below:

**Refineries operated at 91.1% of capacity, way over what analysts
expected. The analyst predicted target was 90%. This is good news.

**Crude oil imports averaged 10.9 million barrels per day last week.
Over the last month, crude imports have averaged 563,000 more barrels
per day than 2006.

**Total motor gasoline imports averaged 1.3 million barrels per day, up
200,000 barrels from the previous week (since the profit margin is
*huge* we’re likely seeing gasoline come from far away places like
Europe)

**Crude oil stockpiles added 2.0 million barrels, compared to the
analyst predicted 500,000-700,000. This is good news, but won’t really
play into prices as oil inventories are still above the average range
for this time of year.

**Gasoline stockpiles added 1.5 million barrels, compared to the analyst predicted 1.2 million barrels.

**Over the past 4 weeks, demand has averaged 9.4 million barrels per day, which is 1.4% more than 2006.

Comments:
Just thought I’d remind you all that refineries have never run over
93.8% of capacity since Katrina. The builds in stockpiles are good,
gasoline could have built more, and the additional build in crude will
help, but not by much. We might see gasoline trade higher, but I think
gasoline today should remain flat to slightly lower due to the higher
than expected refinery runs. Refiners are now getting their act
together- 91.1% is a good number, and that even reflects one of the
nations largest refineries in Whiting, Indiana being at 50% for a few
weeks still. It seems that the refineries that aren’t having issues are
likely running 99-100% to take advantage of the higher margins.

This was a good report, but that doesn’t mean that gas prices will
automatically drop. I’ll be watching the markets activities today and
will dispatch another e-mail if necessary, but at this point it doesn’t
seem likely.

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