the news is finally catching up to WWO knows already.

U.S. gasoline stockpiles, at 193.1 million barrels, have never been this low at this time of year. Stocks have plunged from an excess of the five-year average to 13 million barrels below it. They've fallen 34.1 million barrels in the past 12 weeks, according to DOE data.

There's no sign yet that prices have climbed high enough to cut usage. There is just a tad under 21 days of supply in U.S. inventory, said Eric Wittenauer, an energy futures analyst at A.G. Edwards. There should be at least 23.

That's odd. Refineries should have been building motor fuel supplies in that time period. But the industry hit a streak of very bad luck. A series of outages shut several key sites across the country.

"This is the worst spate of refinery problems I've ever seen," said John P. Kilduff, an energy analyst at Man Financial and veteran of the business. "Fires, operational issues, environmental issues, lightning strikes."

So it took the news a while but I guess it's finally getting through to them...