Refined Product Inventories are way down

[dan_s]

Details of the EIA weekly report here: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_sum_sn ... _nus_w.htm

Gasoline and Distillate inventories have declined by more than 24 million barrels in the three weeks since Hurricane Harvey made landfall just east of Corpus Christi on 8/25/2017.

Prior to the hurricane, U.S. refineries were running at 96.6% capacity. Hurricane related shutdowns took that down to 77.7% of capacity and for the week ending 9/15/2017 U.S. refiners are only back to 83.2% of capacity. It will take several more weeks to get back to 95% of capacity, which is where they will need to run through at least year-end to replenish the depleted inventories of refined products.

This is why WTI has pushed over $50/bbl despite an increase in crude oil inventories. Draws for crude oil inventories will start in October and could be quite large in Q4.