19JUL2019 - NEWS - A New Gasoline Glut Is In The Making

The downstream refining sector has rebounded a bit, shrugging off the glut of gasoline seen earlier this year. But another product surplus could be looming in the second half of 2019 and into 2020.Refiners worked at elevated levels last year, helping to produce a global gasoline surplus that ran into the early part of this year. However, refiners undertook extensive maintenance in the first few months of 2019, and the volume of refining capacity that has been offline recently has been higher than normal. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, refining outages have run about 300,000 bpd above year-ago levels so far in 2019. The downstream outages have been a big negative for crude oil, but they have helped trim the glut of refined products.