Being close to a refinery is more helpful than not being close to one. But other factors would include how much competition is in that area and also the demographics. |
Demand growth has become so strong that these higher supply levels don't represent the same daily demand coverage they used to. SUVs are making up a bigger percentage of the fleet and the average American tends to drive more miles. |
Even before Katrina we felt the market was on edge, a very tight market, with very little spare (refining) capacity anywhere along the chain. |
How high prices rise and how long they stay elevated is still up in the air because we don't know what the ultimate damage is going to be. |
I think there's a chance of getting above $3 this summer. I don't think we would expect it to stay up there unless there's a long-term Iranian embargo, or a long-term refinery outage. |
I would expect (demand) to be lower ... than what we were saying before. |
If you haven't already (hit $2), it looks like you never will. This is probably just the start of the seasonal rise. |
It's difficult for me to envision (the OPEC offer) having too much of an impact. Crude inventories here in the U.S. are looking pretty good. |
It's difficult for me to envision (the OPEC offer) having too much of an impact. Crude inventories here in the U.S. are looking pretty good. |
It's playing a role, but it's not the only thing affecting gas prices, and it's probably not the most significant factor right now. |
Just as we were saying high prices were lessening the demand growth we would normally see, but not as much as some people would think, the lower prices are having some impact on making demand higher. |
Just like we were citing supply and demand as the reasons why prices went up, it's the same reason they're going down. It's pretty much followed with what we would be expecting. |
Normally we'd expect to see a decline of about 400,000 barrels a day from August to September just for seasonal reasons, as people stop taking vacations. |
Our imports of gasoline averaged close to 1.0 million barrels per day in the last four weeks, which is very high for February. |
Retail prices may stabilize more than fall in the next couple of weeks. We're not ruling out further price increases should spot prices increase, but the retail price should be stabilizing over the next several weeks. |