Stocks of gasoline in the US West Coast region fell for the second consecutive week and the fifth week in the past six, dropping 620,000 barrels to 32.052 million barrels in the week ended Friday, data released Wednesday by the US Energy Information Administration showed.
The draw brought regional inventories to their lowest levels since hitting 30.328 million barrels the week of December 27. In all, stocks fell 2.815 million barrels over the past six weeks.
Unlike the week ended February 21, when overall West Coast stocks declined but RBOB stocks increased slightly, West Coast RBOB stocks fell 490,000 barrels to 15.364 million barrels last week, their lowest level since hitting 15.272 million barrels the week of January 3.
Gasoline production similarly declined across the region, falling 9,000 b/d to 1.548 million b/d, despite a 3.9 percentage point rise in refinery utilization to 89.2%.
This drop in output was outweighed, however, by a rise in imports from only 1,000 b/d to 40,000 b/d. Imports hit their highest level since reaching 48,000 b/d the week of August 16.
In the intervening weeks, the West Coast averaged only 8,700 b/d of imports.