http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/security/ESARJan06.html

ENERGY SITUATION ANALYSIS REPORT: Y2K January 6, 2000

U.S. Petroleum Supply

(Thousand Barrels per Day) Four Weeks Ending vs. Year Ago 12/31/99 12/31/98 Diff. % Diff. Refinery Activity

Crude Oil Input 14,516 14,840 -324 -2.2%

Operable Capacity 16,300 15,951 349 2.2%

Operable Capacity Utilization (%) 89.5% 95.1% -5.6% Production Motor Gasoline 8,341 8,406 -65 -0.8%

Jet Fuel 1,578 1,611 -33 -2.0%

Distillate Fuel Oil 3,407 3,431 -24 -0.7% Imports

Crude Oil (incl. SPR) 8,015 8,352 -337 -4.0%

Motor Gasoline 472 559 -87 -15.6%

Jet Fuel 103 130 -27 -20.9%

Distillate Fuel Oil 195 245 -50 -20.4%

Total 9,751 10,258 -507 -4.9% Exports

Crude Oil 110 90 20 22.2%

Products 860 803 57 7.1%

Total 970 893 77 8.6% Products Supplied

Motor Gasoline 8,659 8,451 208 2.5%

Jet Fuel 1,643 1,749 -106 -6.1%

Distillate Fuel Oil 3,980 3,484 496 14.2%

Total 19,857 19,419 438 2.3% Stocks (Million Barrels) 12/31/99 12/31/98 Diff. % Diff.

Crude Oil (excl. SPR) 290.3 323.9 -33.6 -10.4%

Motor Gasoline 192.0 215.5 -23.5 -10.9%

Jet Fuel 40.9 44.7 -3.8 -8.5%

Distillate Fuel Oil 119.7 156.0 -36.3 -23.3%

Total (excl. SPR) 943.5 1,076.5 -133.0 -12.4%

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000

Answers

So why does the pump price go down? Makes no sense.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Imports may have dropped due to prices falling; importing waiting for a better price? I haven't a clue about this stuff; just posted for comments.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000.

They were stocking for Y2K in case of failures. Since the crise is resolve they dont need it. The effect of this is there is to much oil on the market and prices are down.

-- DJ (defragmenteur@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000.

Forest,

This is basically for Dec. Pump prices didn't go down last month. Gasoline retail prices escalated steadily thru 3rd and 4th quarter '99. They've gone down since the start of the year.

Hokie,

Here's the deal on the gasoline imports. Notice its a small piece of the supply puzzle. We import 300-400,000 barrels a day, while our domestic refineries are cracking out over 8 million barrels/day of gasoline. There's a couple of mega-refineries that account for the bulk of these gasoline imports. One is Hess St Croix (550,000 barrels a day) and another one in Venezuela (560,000 barrels a day). Both of these just ship where the economics are the best. What spot price minus freight brings the best returns? Sometime its the US West Coast (thru a Panamanian pipeline), sometimes its S. America, most of the time its the US NE, and sometimes like Dec, its Europe. Instead of trading $1.25 to $1.75 under our NYMEX traded WTI, Brent prices were only trading a slight discount to us most of Dec. The European product prices were also trading at higher than normal levels relative to us. Gasoline went to Europe because the trans-Atlantic arb justified it.

And in the future if our prices moved up relative to Europe, not only would this St Croix and Ven gasoline flow here but it frequently would attract gasoline from Europe as well. Contrary to what most think about the oil biz, its a pretty good free market system and it works.

-- Downstreamer (downstream@bigfoot.com), January 10, 2000.

Prices are down????

Not here they just went UP 2 cent last Saturday ( Rochester,NY)

-- RickJohn (rickjohn1@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.