11.   Prices on the futures market are down because refiners, awash in imported crude, have been producing gasoline at a record pace.

12.   Refineries not only are required to produce gasoline for mass consumption, but also have been forced to become boutiques.

13.   Refineries had to buy more crude oil to convert to heating oil during the time when they typically would have switched to producing gasoline.

14.   The auto makers say there has not been much of a problem in Western Europe and Japan, where gasoline is generally produced to stricter standards.

15.   The drop in supply comes amid recent problems at refineries in Texas and Louisiana that are producing gasoline at near maximum rates ahead of the peak summer demand period.

16.   The higher prices mostly reflect normal supply and demand factors, plus the increased cost of producing cleaner gasoline required by new regulations, officials say.

17.   The unit produces gasoline by upgrading residual fuel from the primary distillation process.

18.   Thus, when a pipeline supplying refineries producing reformulated gasoline ruptured, it set in place the events that caused the soaring prices.

19.   U.S. refiners are producing less gasoline in favor of heating oil as the driving season nears an end and colder weather approaches.

20.   But he said rejection of the waiver request could increase the cost of producing gasoline with enthanol and drive pump prices up.