US refiners profit as petrol sales surprise even analysts

San Francisco

OIL supplies are abundant. America's refiners are running the hardest in 10 years. So why isn't the country awash in petrol?

It's all going up in smoke.

Back in January, the Energy Information Administration forecast Americans would burn 8.71 million barrels of petrol a day in the first quarter. They actually used 100,000 more than that to drive a record 720.1 billion miles or 1.1 trillion kilometres. That's about 3,900 return trips to the sun.

The thirst for fuel in the US and abroad has been greater than analysts, in…