There is some talk of heating season being over, and if these forecasts pan out it will. There is a renewed interest in gasoline. Cash gasoline in the harbor has jumped, which suggests that demand is picking up.
From a purely fundamental basis, the market shouldn't be within $20 of the crude price that we're seeing. But people are reluctant to sell.
It looked like we would be experiencing below-normal temperatures through mid-January but now it appears that the pattern will end by the end of the month. That has taken the steam out of natural gas and oil as well.
The gasoline barrels from Europe might take two weeks to get here. Things will get worse before they get better because stocks will be tighter.
Prices will continue to wander higher as confirmation of the damage comes in. It will be real tough to get everything back up and running quickly. Refiners that were left undamaged by the storm may not be able to operate at their full potential because of all the missing crude oil.
The inventory numbers were pretty tame so the market is continuing with its overall downtrend tend. Distillate demand should be weak. There is no cold weather out there and unless you are in North Dakota it looks like that should continue for the next two weeks.
This is when you price in the inventory expectations. Gasoline should be strong because we expect that supplies fell last week. There's a direct relationship between supply and price.
Any resolution to the gasoline problem won't occur in the short term. There's enough crude oil around. The problem is with refining and specifications.
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