US retail gasoline prices soared to another record on Monday as global refineries struggled with adding new capacity ahead of the driving season.
Before diving into Goldman Sachs' new commodity note explaining how global refining will be tight for the foreseeable future, last week, Saudi Energy Minister said, "the bottleneck is now to do with refining ... many refineries in the world, especially in Europe and the US, have closed."
Goldman's commodity analyst Neil Mehta outlines a rash of refinery retirements, reduced Russian energy exports, recovering jet fuel demand, and tight global inventories for products, particularly diesel, have supported higher retail fuel prices.
Mehta points out US product inventories are below a 10% five-year average, refining utilization rates are below normal, global natural gas prices are high, and demand for diesel remains robust.
