Each year it seems that at some point in time, the Petroleum Market in the Pacific Northwest, and nationally for that matter, wanders into uncharted waters, and it's blatantly obvious that 2005 is no different. The volatility continues. For the (past) several years, February has typically seen large market increases due to a spattering of suppliers that routinely schedule refinery "turnarounds" for this "lower demand" time of year. A "turnaround" is basically when the refinery operation is taken down for scheduled maintenance, thus refinery product runs are reduced significantly. Tesoro does their turnaround each February, as is the case right now. U.S. Oil is also down for turnaround, although their impact is not nearly the scale of Tesoro's. Tesoro apparently had an agreement with Shell to help supply diesel fuel to offset their turnaround, and ConocoPhillips had a similar agreement with U.S. Oil. From what I heard yesterday, both Shell and ConocoPhillips are having unannounced issues at their own refineries, thus it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to live up to their respective agreements. Unfortunately, supply and demand is still the rule, and the Pacific Northwest is currently having diesel supply issues. The Seattle OPIS Rack Average for diesel fuel, over the past 2 months (Dec. 15th - Today) has increased over .76 cents per gallon. The PNW Diesel rack prices today are in excess of .40 cents per gallon over Los Angeles Carb diesel prices, nearly .53 cents per gallon over New York Harbor L.S. Diesel, and more than .57 cents per gallon over L.S. Diesel in the Gulf.