Rising oil demand in the United States and flat domestic production in recent months have boosted the price of the U.S. oil benchmark WTI Crude, which has significantly narrowed the discount to Brent Crude in recent weeks. According to GasBuddy data , weekly U.S. gasoline demand for the week to June 13 rose for the fourth consecutive week to a new pandemic high, and was up by 0.8 percent from the prior week. U.S. gasoline and distillates production is also rising, with gasoline production averaging 9.9 million barrels per day (bpd) in the week to June 11, compared with 9.4 million bpd a week earlier, the EIA said in this week’s inventory report . Production of middle distillates averaged 5.1 million bpd last week, compared with 4.9 million bpd a week earlier. Refinery utilization rates jumped to 92.6 percent in the week to June 11, the highest since the […]