NEW YORK: Chicago gasoline cash differentials gained on Wednesday as refiners actively bought in the region, market participants said.
Chicago CBOB gasoline rose 2.75 cents a gallon to trade at 0.75 cent per gallon below the gasoline futures benchmark on the New York Mercantile Exchange, traders said.
While Chicago ultra-low sulfur diesel rose a penny to trade at 9.50 cents per gallon below the heating oil futures contract, the product is still trading at the lowest seasonally since at least 2011.
A delayed planting season in the Midwest because of massive floods sapped demand and prices for diesel in the last few months. The delays are expected to have spillover effects on diesel demand during harvest season in the fall, analysts and traders said.
On the Gulf Coast, A2 CBOB gasoline rose a half cent to trade at 13.00 cents per gallon below futures as trade for the product began on Colonial Pipeline's 41st cycle for delivery to New York Harbor, traders said.
62-grade ULSD rose 1.50 cents a gallon to trade at 5.00 cents per gallon below futures.
Marathon Petroleum Corp delayed completing the restart of the gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) at its 585,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Galveston Bay refinery in Texas City, Texas, until later this week, sources familiar with plant operations said on Wednesday.
In New York Harbor, M2 conventional gasoline lost a half penny to trade at 1.00 cent per gallon below futures, traders said.
US gasoline stocks fell by 1.5 million barrels in the week to July 5, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, near analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.3 million-barrel drop.
Distillate stockpiles rose by 3.7 million barrels, versus expectations for a 739,000-barrel increase, the data showed.
Refinery crude runs rose by 148,000 barrels per day to hit 17.4 million bpd, the most since early January, responding to higher summer demand.
The RBOB futures contract on NYMEX rose 7.83 cents to settle at $2.0052 a gallon on Wednesday. NYMEX ultra-low sulfur diesel futures gained 8.04 cents to settle at $1.991 a gallon.
Renewable fuel (D6) credits for 2019 traded at 20.5 cents each on Wednesday, down slightly from 21 cents on Tuesday, traders said.
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