US refiners need extra 52 mln bbls oil thru April-EIA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- US refiners need extra 52 mln bbls oil thru April-EIA

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON, March 10 (Reuters) - U.S. refiners will have to find 52 million barrels of additional crude oil in March and April as they produce gasoline, because any new oil from higher OPEC production levels will not arrive until May, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"If OPEC increases production in early April, most of those volumes would not reach U.S. shores until May," the EIA said in a special report that was put on its website late on Thursday.

"Compared to February, U.S. refiners must find an additional 15 million barrels of crude oil in March and 37 million in April in a market that is short," the agency said.

U.S. refiners will need an extra 1.3 million barrels of oil a day during the second quarter over the first quarter as they return from maintenance schedules to ramp up production for the high demand gasoline season, the EIA said.

Because of low petroleum inventories, the EIA has warned that gasoline pump prices could peak nationally at an average $1.80 a gallon this summer.

The agency said refinery utilization this summer will be back to the high levels seen in 1997 and 1998, even though refining capacity has increased since then.

"But (petroleum) imports and inventories will not be available to help meet increased (U.S.) demand this summer," the EIA said.

Europe may not have much extra gasoline to export to the U.S. market this summer as it did last year, the agency said. That's because Europe needs distillate oil during the summer, not gasoline, and as European refiners fill their distillate needs the extra gasoline that is produced is normally exported.

"But this year, Europe is beginning the summer with low gasoline stocks and adequate distillate supplies," the EIA said. "Thus, there may be little incentive to push distillate production, (and) gasoline production for export may be less than last year."

High refinery utilization rates combined with low stocks could the leave the United States in a position where unexpected changes in production, imports and demand could result in local gasoline shortages and price spikes "for a time," the agency said.

"If gasoline stocks are low, but crude oil is adequate, crude oil can be run through refineries to produce gasoline fairly quickly. But with both materials being low, we have no room for the unexpected," the EIA warned.

(-Tom Doggett, Washington Energy Desk, 202-898-8320)

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), March 10, 2000

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