New York (Platts)--29Jan2008

Analysts expect US commercial crude stocks to show a 2.6 million barrel
build when the Energy Information Administration and American Petroleum
Institute release weekly data on Wednesday, a Platts survey Tuesday indicated.
A low rate of crude throughputs and a steady level of imports will
continue to result in stock builds as is seasonal.
Last week, crude inputs fell 91,000 b/d to 14.92 million b/d, as poor
margins provided the economic incentive to kick off maintenance season early.
Refinery utilization rates were expected to edge down another 0.2 percentage
points to 86.3%, based on EIA data.
Analysts were expecting a build of 1.6 million barrels in gasoline
stocks. Among the most closely watched pieces of data will continue to be
anything suggesting signs of a drop off in demand, particularly gasoline.
While week-over-week, gasoline demand tumbled in last week's EIA report,
demand was up 1.1% year-over-year on a four-week moving average. But imports
have fed into recent gasoline stock builds as well and will need to stay above
1 million b/d to see another increase in inventories.
Analysts were projecting a draw in distillates of 2.1 million barrels. A
two-day cold snap and a subsequent jump in demand will be behind a decline in
heating oil inventories. Distillate stocks decline through the middle of April
historically.
--Linda Rafield, linda_rafield@platts.com