Slide 13 of 30
Notes:
- Imports are perhaps the most interesting story this past winter.
- Looking back to the winter of 1999-00, imports soared when the price spike occurred. They were the main solution to the supply shortage that occurred. Total distillate imports peaked at about 200 MB/D higher than they typically run.
- The high margins this year along with warm weather in Europe, however, have produced an even more dramatic picture. As this slide shows, estimated distillate imports jumped to almost 780 MB/D in January before falling back to 570 MB/D in February -- still a very high volume. The January peak is over 2.5 times the more typical 250-300 MB/D peaks seen during the winter.
- This large and steady flow of imports probably helped to prevent price spikes this past winter. As cold weather arrived, buyers knew product was near at hand if not already waiting to be offloaded.
- What would have been situation if Europe had had a colder winter? Fortunately we don’t know.
