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To: ild who wrote (226341)	3/7/2003 2:41:35 PM
From: ild	Respond to of 436258

03/07 12:17 Nymex Gasoline Surges to 21-Month High on Shrinking Inventories By Bruce Blythe New York, March 7 (Bloomberg) -- Gasoline futures rose as much as 3.3 percent to a 21-month high on concern that low U.S. crude-oil inventories will hamper efforts to build fuel supplies sufficiently before weather warms and driving increases. U.S. crude stocks fell to the lowest level in more than 27 years last month, partly because a nationwide strike in Venezuela cut shipments from the fourth-largest supplier of crude to the U.S. Gasoline inventories, already down 3.1 percent from a year earlier, may shrink further as demand rises, analysts said. ``These are not historically high inventories by any means,'' said Monty Eubank, director of products trading with Petrocom Energy Group Ltd. in Houston. ``I think any kind of refinery glitches we have, gasoline could be kind of exciting.'' Gasoline for April delivery rose 3.2 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $1.138 a gallon at 12:07 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after reaching $1.142, the highest price for a contract closest to expiration since $1.145 on May 29, 2001. Prices have risen 49 percent over the past three months. At the New York harbor, wholesale conventional gasoline for delivery over the next three days rose 3.4 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $1.0638 a gallon. The price's discount to April futures narrowed to about 7.42 cents from 7.63 cents yesterday. U.S. gasoline inventories last week fell 1 percent from the previous week to 206.1 million barrels, a nine-week low, the U.S. Energy Department said. Last week's inventories, which amounted to about 23 days of supply, were down 2.7 percent from an average of 211.9 million barrels at the end of February during the previous five years, government data showed. Refinery Production The decline comes with many U.S. refineries closed for maintenance or emphasizing heating-oil production at the expense of gasoline to keep pace with higher furnace use from a cold winter. U.S. crude supplies may decline further if a war with Iraq disrupts oil shipments out of the Middle East. ``The low crude inventories are going to cause these prices to stay high and be very vulnerable to going higher,'' said John Kilduff, senior vice president of energy-risk management at Fimat USA Inc. in New York. ``Any kind of uptick in demand, any kind of refinery problem and more of the geopolitical turmoil'' may boost prices. Gasoline supplies are ``just not where we want to be given everything that's going on,'' Kilduff said. At the Gulf of Mexico, conventional wholesale gasoline for five-day delivery rose 3.83 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $1.0763 a gallon, according to Bloomberg data. The discount to April futures narrowed to about 6.17 cents from 6.8 cents yesterday. quote.bloomberg.com