Nominal Capacity vs. Stated Capacity

The stated system capacity, by which the refinery utilization is computed, is about 17.4 mbpd.

If you take the stated refinery utilization, which last week was 89 percent, and compute the theoretical inputs (purple line) there is about a 2 percent gap, which means the system is not actually taking in as much crude oil as the nominal calculation says that it should.

This gap has increased in the last few weeks as the system comes out of its slumbering mode.....it represents some refinery inefficiency, and more likely, represents the fact that the system is not capable of taking as many barrels per day as the reports state.