MassiveIndustry

(Mon, 19 Mar 2001) EIA's assessment of the petroeum markets suggessts the potential for another year of volatility, stemming from a tight petroleum balance, lean stocks and, for gasoline, little excess production capacity. Last winter, strong margins and warm weather in Europe encouraged high distillate imports, keeping supplies near at hand. Thus, even though distillate inventories remained low, the nearby import cargoes helped to prevent a reoccurence of price spikes. If strong gasoline margins attract gasoline imports this summer, that could help the gasoline market, but probably not to the same extent at imports helped distillate.