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Heavy spring US refinery work could spike gasoline prices: Tesoro
Platts
New York
Petroleumworld.com 01 30 06
US gasoline price spikes, similar to last year's sharp jumps as refiners'
phased out MTBE, could occur again in 2007 due to "heavy" maintenance,
according to Tesoro Chief Economist Lynn Westfall Monday."I would not be surprised to see some similar spikes this year" as
refiners take units down during what is normally the switchover to gasoline
production, he said. Westfall attributed the later-than-usual maintenance to
delays in a tight labor and construction market, noting work is also taking
longer.In the first quarter, Westfall said the amount of US distillation
capacity that will be down will be three-and-a-half times higher than last
year, while upgrading capacity taken down will be more than 1% higher. Most of
the outages will occur on the West Coast and Gulf Coast, he told Platts.In April and May, he expects one-third of Rocky Mountain PADD 4's
conversion capacity to be offline. That area, he said, "is the last one to get
resources."--Beth Evans, beth_evans@platts.com
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Platts 29 01 07
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