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But that good news was tempered by new reports of refinery outages, including a fire at a large Preem facility in Sweden, and a quickly resolved problem at a Valero Energy Corp. refinery in Texas last week.
"Any refinery problems anywhere on the globe now adds to concerns" that gasoline supplies won't be adequate to meet peak summer driving demand, Flynn said.
The summer driving season begins in two weeks, on Memorial Day weekend. The government reported that gasoline inventories rose slightly last week, but remain low by historical standards.
"Tightness in the US gasoline situation will continue to drive the market ... because the summer driving season is right around the corner," said Victor Shum, energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. "There's not a lot of time for refineries to catch up with demand."
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