UPDATE 1-Plant overhauls to cut US gasoline stocks: Refinery chiefs

(Recasts with comments from other refiners and context throughout, adds byline)

By Erwin Seba

HOUSTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) -

Valero Energy Corp, the second largest U.S. oil refiner, on Thursday joined rivals in forecasting refinery maintenance will cut into U.S. gasoline inventories that have kept retail prices low.

U.S. refineries have been running at high throughput since emerging in mid-2021 from the COVID-19 demand drop. Rival Delek US Holdings made similar comments a day earlier.

"Product inventories ahead of the summer driving season are expected to be constrained with heavy, industry-wide turnaround activity in the first quarter," Valero Chief Executive Lane Riggs said on a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

As of last week, U.S. gasoline stockpiles totaled 253 million barrels, 21 million barrels more than the same time a year ago. Gasoline retails for about $3.10 per gallon, down nearly 11% from a year ago.

Joseph Israel, an executive vice president at refiner Delek, said this week industry utilization in the current quarter likely would not reach 90%.

Last week's winter freeze was "a window for maintenance (to start) for a lot of these refineries, which are probably going to (last) four to six weeks. Refiners will wake up sometime in late February and early March and ask themselves again if we are ready for gasoline season," said Israel.

CRUDE IMPORTS

Valero also said it is adding to supplies of heavy crude that boost gasoline stocks. It is taking more oil from Venezuela following the lifting last year of U.S. sanctions that halted imports. Mexican crude imports also have not been affected by the opening of a new refinery in Southern Mexico.

"We continue to ramp up our volume of Venezuelan crude," said Simmons, noting the higher supplies have helped prices. The startup of Mexico's Dos Bocas refinery late last year has not affected supplies of Maya crude, he added.

U.S. refiners routinely schedule maintenance in the first quarter to prepare equipment for high demand in the summer driving season.

Valero's 14 refineries will operate at 83% to 86% of their combined total throughput capacity of 3.15 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first quarter, down from 93% in the year-ago period and 97% in the fourth quarter. Valero expects the national gasoline inventory will shrink through the first quarter.

"You'll see more of a draw as we get into February and March with the turnaround activity and a little colder weather," said Valero operating chief Gary Simmons.

Not all refiners expect a heavy period of outages.

"We can expect a pretty normal maintenance cycle," Jerry Miller, senior vice president of commercial supply at refiner HF Sinclair, said on Wednesday. "A lot of maintenances have now been caught up."

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; additional reporting by Arathy Somasekhar and Georginia McCartney; editing by Gary McWilliams and Richard Chang)