SResidual fuel oil inventories climbed during the winter of 2003-2004 in both Europe and North America, while remaining flat in OECD Asia.
	SIn 2004, European residual fuel inventories built over the summer, but were drawn down by the end of December.
	SU.S. residual fuel inventories began 2004 at levels higher than in 2003, but declined through much of the year until fall, when a single-month increase in November brought them back up, before they continued to decline again.
	SA large contributor to that U.S. stock build in November was a falloff in residual fuel exports, which points to other factors that were affecting Atlantic Basin residual fuel oil balances during the fall months.  For example, tanker rates were very high in the fall, which would have reduced  the incentive to move product outside the region to areas such as Asia.
	SIn summary, even with increased production of residual fuel oil due to increased throughputs  of crude oil, residual fuel oil stocks do not show the kind of build that would indicate a flood of residual fuel oil into the market.
	SStill, one could argue that perhaps this aggregate data is not sensitive enough to pick up the marginal impacts of the shift in heavy crude oils into the market.  But price, which is set by marginal players, should give us more insight.