The Oil Drum: Gasoline Stocks are way down…get ready to pay…

This is the current picture of the US gasoline stocks, as posted at the EIA site. You need to scroll down the site to see the graphs. The recent fall is quite marked. But I would like to reiterate something that Edward Tufte has taught me (by reading his books), and that is that you have to recognize that this is only highlighting the shifts. You have also to look at the scale on the left to see that while the drop has been about 30 million barrels, we still have about 190 mb left, and so there is no need to panic.
Normally, as you can see, we would be entering a period where we would be rebuilding stocks. The damage from Katrina and Rita, and the current refinery problems, will likely see that delayed. Trying to balance gas production against heating oil may be a hard call that someone is going to have to make.

A lot of different stuff today at The Oil Drum.