If demand for petroleum products and therefore crude is weak, someone better tell US refiners. As can be seen in the graph above, US refinery inputs are running much higher than this time last year. In fact US refinery inputs are averaging 3% higher for the month of January 2016 than January 2015. For all the hype that much cheaper crude is on the way, US refiners are signalling that they do not believe that to be true. Given refiners already have high storage levels for gasoline and very high storage levels for distillates why would they be running at such a feverish pace when they could slow down earlier and more dramatically that previous years. Allowing crude inventories to build and refined product inventories to fall, putting more pressure on crude and propping up gasoline and distillate prices. Just like last year, they have more orders on the books or expect more orders than the average bear.
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