* Diesel gets boost from Asian heat, French strikes
* Driving demand soars, but full tanks scupper profits
* U.S. diesel profit crept above gasoline in summerabnormality
By Ahmad Ghaddar and Libby George
LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) - Just as drivers hit the road forsummer holidays, refiners are turning the taps down on gasolineas a global excess cuts into their profits.
Refiners in Europe, Asia and the United States, from themighty ExxonMobil down to smaller players such asItaly's Saras, amped up the proportion of gasoline theychurned out to cash in on record driver demand.
But now they are moving back to the diesel, jet fuel andheating oil that for more than a year had become a "by-product"they did not want.
"The pendulum of profitability between gasoline and dieselis set to swing back toward the latter during the next 12months," ESAI analyst John Galante said in an annual forecast."Tightness in the global gasoline market has run its course."
Already, Europe's refineries are moving towards diesel,traders said, while Asian units are maximising jet fuel. In theUnited States, Husky Energy in Lima, Ohio, is makingmore diesel, while Delta Air Lines is considering switching itsTrainer, Pennsylvania refinery to maximise diesel.
The shift is due in part to the success of their own effortsto do everything they could - from choosing different crude oilto tweaking the way they ran their units - to capitalise onbooming gasoline and naphtha demand.
Most can only shift a small amount of production from oneproduct to another - less than 5 percent, even in a best-casescenario - but the worldwide effort had a big impact.
Physical supply of so-called light-end products builtquietly on ships, at refineries and in storage tanks, with evenChina exporting gasoline to the United States. The figures arenow showing up in official data.
According to Euroilstock, gasoline inventories in Europeclocked a counter-seasonal build of 3 million barrels from Aprilto May, while even the U.S. Energy Information Administrationhas shown some builds in gasoline stocks despite record demandfrom drivers.
"It has become clear that this is really not 2015 anymoreand that the effects of yield-shifting exercises across theglobe have more or less taken care of what we assume to still bestrong demand growth for gasoline," analysts at JBC wrote.
At the same time, an unexpected shortfall in diesel and jetfuel crept in, buoyed by strikes that closed four Frenchrefineries and extreme heat from El Nino that boosteddistillates burned in power generators in India, Pakistan andVietnam.
Last week, premiums for gasoline over ultra-low-sulphurdiesel fell to flat on a per-barrel basis for the first timesince March, in Europe, and November, in Asia, according to JBC.U.S. gasoline traded at a discount to diesel on Wednesday forthe first time seasonally in three years <1RBc1-HOc1>.
Still, the shift could prove to be only a short-term profitaid. One trader said the change "makes little sensehistorically", while analysts warned it could simply crushdiesel margins.
"If they are forced to make more diesel it will underminethose economics, particularly as August is typically a slowperiod for demand," said Robert Campbell, head of oil productswith Energy Aspects. (Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Devika KrishnaKumar in New York and Seng Li Peng and Roslan Khasawneh inSingapore; Editing by Dale Hudson)
