Why is one refinery closing part of the process for 1,5 days a newsworthy problem? It ought to be random insignificant noise, not news.

Why is 247,000 barrels per day significant? Because we are about 6.5 million barrels per day over Minimum Operating Level (MOL) and we are consuming about 9.5 million barrels per day and not importing or refining enough to cover that difference (hence the drawdown in inventories). Thus, unless imports go up to compensate for the lost 247 KBpd , next week's inventory looks to be even lower, assuming similar consumption rates persist.

"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Dr. Albert Bartlett
Into the Grey Zone