Northwest European gasoline refining margins fell on Thursday amid weak exports, shrugging off a continually weak crude price and falling inventories on both sides of the Atlantic. Oil prices plunged more than 4% on Thursday, down for a fifth day to their lowest since January 2019 as more new coronavirus cases outside China fed fears of a pandemic that could slow the global economy and dent demand for crude.

Northwestern European gasoline stocks fell 6% to 1.12 million tonnes as exports outpaced imports, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed on Thursday. US gasoline stocks fell last week by 2.7 million barrels in the week to 256.4 million barrels, EIA data showed, compared with expectations in a Reuters poll for a 2.2 million barrel drop.

So far in February, some 288,000 tonnes of gasoline and blending components have been delivered from Europe and the Mediterranean to the United States, Refinitiv Eikon data showed. The exports last month were 710,000 tonnes and in February 2019 730,000 tonnes. Saudi Aramco will shut its largest oil refinery for five to six weeks from June 1. The 550,000 bpd Ras Tanura refinery supplies over a quarter of the kingdom's fuel supply.

Copyright Reuters, 2020

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