• For the week ending December 23, the latest Platts survey is looking for a 2.3 million barrel decline in U.S. crude oil stocks, a 1.2 million barrel fall in distillate supplies, and a 500,000 barrel drop in gasoline inventories.  In the context of our discussion yesterday morning, our expected crude oil stock decline would fall close to consensus expectations.  Because we expect some retracement in implied distillate demand back toward our underling mean, we would look for a somewhat smaller decline in distillate supplies than the market is expecting.  We are also looking for a modest build in gasoline supplies, but if pre-holiday secondary stocking exceeded our estimates primary inventories could have easily fallen in line with consensus expectations.  We note the comparable period last year witnessed a healthy gasoline stock draw, but in general history is not perfectly consistent prior to the Christmas holiday.  In addition, underlying gasoline consumption is so weak at the present time the arithmetic suggests it could offset any pre-holiday secondary stocking effect.               

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