Over the past four weeks diesel prices have started to rally moving toward harvest season. The question remains whether this is temporary or a longer-term trend.
From a regional perspective, Midwest distillate inventories for the week of 14 July were the highest recorded for the region since February of 2022. Inventories in the Midwest usually build rapidly in the summer, although that didn’t occur in 2022. Last year, low inventories in the Midwest persisted through the first half of the summer and into the harvest season, when distillate stocks typically draw an average of about 8 million barrels out of inventory from September through November. The 2023 spring maintenance slowdown was heavy in the Midwest drawi...
