Lost hydrocarbon in the US reaches 1.1 mb/d

Brent prompt future contract slipped back to 67.3 $/b as the lost US production was estimated to be at 1.1 mb/d for last week. The picture for petroleum products is looking increasingly bullish, as the US refinery runs dropped by 2.6 mb/d and could take a significant amount of time to resume. Japanese refinery utilization, dropped to 68% (-10% pts w/w) as refineries in the west part of the archipelago were recovering from the earthquake experienced last week. Yet, commercial stocks in Japan continued to dip by almost 4 mb.