	lower refinery operations seen producing profits u s refiners will have to reduce operations if they want to be profitable this year said industry officials attending the national petroleum refiners association meeting here if the refining sector can discipline itself to refine about mln barrels of  oil a day we have a chance to pull down inventories to acceptable levels by the second quarter said archie dunham executive vice president of petroluem products at conoco inc if not the industry will have a tough he added last week s american petroleum institute report said that u s refining capacity rose three pct to pct of capacity with  oil runs at mln barrels per day for the week ended march the api said that with the higher  oil runs distillate and gasoline inventories were sharply above year ago levels gasoline stocks were at mln barrels some mln barrels above year ago levels distillate stocks at mln barrels are mln barrels above last year s level the api said henry rosenberg chairman of crown central petroleum corp cnp told reuters that unless refining and marketing return to profitability oil companies will have to rely on downstream operations to produce an acceptable level of earnings the jump in refining capacity is a concern if it continues said kenneth buckler executive vice president of refining and marketing at total petroleum co a u s subsidiary of cie francaise des petroles of france refineries should operate near pct of capacity given the current level of demand but the operating level should increase as gasoline demand picks up in the next quarter buckler said dunham said the potential operable capacity of u s refineries should also be cut about barrels of  per day i expect to see the shutdown of more small refineries over the next five years he said adding that these facilities refine between and barrels of  oil per day the api said u s operations have the capacity to refine mln bpd of  reuter 
