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This Week In Petroleum EIA Home > Petroleum > This Week In Petroleum |
Released on November 26, 2003 How Low Are RFG Inventories? When making MTBE-blended RFG, refiners produce motor gasoline blending components from refinery crude oil distillation and downstream processing units. These components are then typically blended with MTBE (or another ether) to increase the oxygen level and add octane, producing a finished gasoline that is shipped by pipeline to a terminal. Hence, the product shows up as finished gasoline stocks at the refinery, pipeline, and terminal as it makes its way through the distribution system. At the terminal rack, tanker trucks receive the finished gasoline along with special additives (detergents, etc.) specific to a particular gasoline retailer and deliver the RFG to retail stations. Now, in areas that have phased out MTBE and are using ethanol, the production of finished RFG has shifted from the refinery to the terminal. Refiners do not move ethanol-based finished gasoline via pipeline because ethanol has an affinity for water, and since pipelines and tanks frequently contain some water, ethanol can get pulled out of the gasoline, leaving a product that cannot be used. As a result, RFG refiners that shift from using MTBE to ethanol now store and ship a base unfinished gasoline mixture called reformulated gasoline blendstock for oxygenate blending, or RBOB. The RBOB is not made into finished gasoline until it is blended with ethanol at the terminal rack. RBOB does not show up in EIA data as finished gasoline inventories, but is accounted for under gasoline blending components. The immediate result of this change is that RFG stocks data decline and blending component stocks data increase in regions that are switching from using MTBE to ethanol in their RFG. Starting in 2004, EIA will begin collecting and publishing an expanded series on blending components. We will begin to break out RBOB inventories as well as any unfinished conventional gasoline intended for ethanol blending. Hence, the stocks of finished RFG and RBOB can be combined to provide a measure of total RFG-quality inventories available. The earliest this data will be available is late March/early April, as monthly data collected under the new series will not be available for use until then. Meanwhile, the most consistent means of observing trends in RFG-quality gasoline inventories is to explore the sum of RFG and gasoline blending component inventories. While gasoline blending component data contain materials other than RBOB, this inventory data series with RFG will provide a better indicator of RFG-quality trends than RFG alone. Other published gasoline data elements are not affected by the switch to ethanol. U.S. Retail Gasoline Price Increases Ahead of the Holiday Retail diesel fuel prices rose for the second consecutive week, increasing by 1.0 cent per gallon as of November 24 to a national average of 149.1 cents per gallon, which is 8.6 cents per gallon higher than a year ago. Retail diesel prices were up throughout the country last week, with New England seeing the largest price increase of 2.2 cents to reach 160.3 cents per gallon. The West Coast saw a price increase of 1.6 cents to hit 161.2 cents per gallon. Residential Heating Oil and Propane Prices Continue Gradual
Climb The average residential propane price rose 0.6 cent to 133.6 cents per gallon. This was an increase of 16.8 cents over the average for this same time last year. Wholesale propane prices increased 0.2 cent per gallon, from 63.6 to 63.8 cents per gallon. This was an increase of 8.6 cents from the November 25, 2002 price of 55.2 cents per gallon. Weekly Propane Inventories Continue Moderately Lower Note: Text from the previous editions of "This Week In Petroleum" is now accessible through a link at the top right-hand corner of this page. |
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