Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) Your first question comes from the line of John Brownlow [ph] of Morgan Keegan.
Ben Brownlow -- Morgan Keegan
Good morning. Ben Brownlow. I guess first off, can you talk about what drove the refining margins versus the industry?
Uzi Yemin
Yes. Good morning, John, this is Uzi. I guess for us, if you recall during the first quarter and second quarter of last year we entered into two hedging structures, if you will, that will last from – through 2009 and some of it 2010, two hedging initiatives. The two hedging initiatives were the ethanol hedging and the ultra low sulfur diesel hedging. The ultra low sulfur diesel was hedged for $24 during the first half of 2008 – second half of 2008 and it was $20 for 2009. So, we see this going on and that brought some money to the table.
The second part is the ethanol hedging and the – that was (inaudible) hedging related to ethanol and same thing we see going on in 2009 as well. Overall, we have – we benefited out of these two $7 per barrel.
Ben Brownlow -- Morgan Keegan
So, if the container market continues and oil prices stay where they are, so you don’t have those volumetric losses, would you expect that $7 spread to continue?
Uzi Yemin
Well, I don’t know if the $7 spread will continue, but I do expect very good effective on the first quarter – second quarter, just because of the simple fact that if you look at ultra low sulfur diesel crack, it’s $6 or $5.5 today. As I said, we have it for $20 for the entire year.
Ben Brownlow -- Morgan Keegan
Okay. And then the product sell through at the refinery, was that due to just cleaning out product or--?
Uzi Yemin
No, no. No, hold – I don’t know that we sold two – we did sell some of the products, but we still hold almost one million barrels of inventory at the refinery, mostly crude, but it doesn’t matter, we do have the inventory.
Ben Brownlow -- Morgan Keegan
Okay. And then going to an accounting question here, on Page Nine of your release, you have a $9.7 million reduction to COGS and the corporate and other eliminations. What is that?
Uzi Yemin
Hold on for one second, John.
Ben Brownlow -- Morgan Keegan
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