Houston gasoline stocks at 'reasonable' levels Monday: retailers

Houston (Platts)--26Sep2005

Gasoline inventories in the Houston area could return to a "reasonable
level" Monday, a spokesman for the Texas Petroleum Marketers and Convenience
Store Association said. 
     Trucks of conventional gasoline, instead of RFG grade, were being
delivered from the Dallas and San Antonio areas, after the EPA issued a waiver
Wednesday. The Houston area will be allowed to use conventional gasoline until
Sep 30, according to the executive director of the TPMCA, Lynton Allred. 
     Supplies could have been delivered sooner, he added, but during
the height of Rita police would not allow trucks to go into Houston. He
said that the Federal Emergency Management Administration had indicated it
would move a temporary fuel depot from Houston to Beaumont, but, said there
was no immediate indication when supplies in that part of Texas would return
to normal levels.
     About 1.13-mil b/d of refining capacity was still off line along the Gulf
Coast in the aftermath of Rita with another 887,000 b/d of idled capacity
resulting from Hurricane Katrina.
     As a result, the US has lost about 2-mil b/d of refining capacity over
the past four weeks, potentially tightening the product situation as peak
demand season approaches.

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