Basis/Marketing Opportunities

As I'm sure you have all noticed, this year is proving to be one not forgotten in the energy industry.  We  are showing crack spreads at very high levels and demand at a 117 month low.  Our basic economics of supply and demand are being questioned by the refiners' ability to produce product at maximum capacity and flood the pipelines with product while speculators take advantage of arbitrage opportunities and offer overseas political issues as a source of price spikes.  Basis is the game I would be playing right now.....Right now Chicago is showing subgrade gasoline basis at (0.6525).  Compare that with Group 3 economics showing a conventional 87 basis at (0.1400).  You're showing an arbitrage of 0.5125; assume you can transport the product from the Chicago market into the Group at a transportation cost of approximately 0.3000 (FSC included) and your netback comes to 0.2125/gallon (this is without even using pipeline transportation!).  Rather than taking a physical position on this product I think traders need to entertain the idea of using this 0.2125 as a liquidation opportunity and focus the majority of their time on buying CBOB basis in Chicago.  Knowing the time of the year, we can all expect prices to continue to rise, and we can expect the basis gap to close as April quickly approaches and RVP season comes rushing in.  You all may remember last year at this time Chicago basis was at (0.2000) right around February/March; after the RVP change Chicago quickly skyrocketed up to .1500, giving traders who were long basis a VERY happy payday.  Rather than merely trading basis, I would suggest to the wholesale jobbers in the Dayton/Columbus Ohio markets to start heading east towards the unbranded customers being supplied by the NY Harbor.  Right now Chicago's discount to the Harbor is approximately 0.6265 poising jobbers and wholesalers with supply rights out of these terminals a tremendous advantage to customers in western/eastern Pennsylvania.  With the branded suppliers in this market continuing to be aggressive, the price and rebate incentives offered could create chaos for jobbers in the Pennsylvania market with limited Chicago economics.  My preference would be for all my Econ classes I took during my undergrad and Corporate Finance classes taken during my Masters to ring true so I can justify my $1 trillion in student loans, but it seems the Wall Street and all its traders still holds the crystal ball....I just hope to get a peek.