LONDON: The gasoline barge crack in northwest Europe rose to new seven-month highs on Wednesday after inventories data from the United States added to trader optimism about upcoming summer demand.
The gasoil crack was at around $10.80 a barrel, its highest level since end-August 2013, as the more costly summer grade gasoline continued to trade well.
US gasoline stockpiles fell 5.1 million barrels week-on-week according to data from the Energy Information Administration, far exceeding a consensus forecast for a 1.2 million barrel draw.
Traders are fairly bullish about US summer demand for gasoline, although European refiners will have to compete with Indian sellers who are also targeting the US
Shipping fixtures showed that India's Reliance had fixed a 60,000 tonne cargo from Sikka to the US Atlantic Coast, loading on April 6.
Some traders thought this was gasoline but others thought it was more likely to be a gasoline component called alkylate. A US broker said that Reliance had sent two cargoes of alkylate to the US Gulf Coast a few weeks ago.
"Florida has been taking a lot of ARA gasoline recently," he added.
On the naphtha side, market participants said they were still hoping for more blending demand to come through, in the absence of any interest from petrochemical buyers.
"Everyone is waiting for this next wave of blending buying but it hasn't arrived yet," a broker said.
Petrochemical companies tend to prefer propane over naphtha at present, as LPG sellers have been cutting prices due to the mild winter. March propane swaps are at a $137 discount to naphtha, making it a more attractive feedstock.
GASOLINE:
No barges of benchmark Eurobob gasoline traded in the Platts price assessment window as there were no bids or offers.
Some 6,000 tonnes of summer gasoline traded on the Argus platform at $984-$985 a tonne fob ARA, compared with Tuesday's trades at $979-$988 a tonne. Gunvor sold to Argos and Argos sold to Noble.
Some 12,000 tonnes of winter grade gasoline traded on the Argus platform at $920-$934 a tonne fob ARA. Total and Trafigura sold to Morgan Stanley, Shell and Vitol.
The early trades came at discounts to the April swap of $64 a tonne. The swap was trading at about $980 a tonne at the close, down from around $984 a tonne on Tuesday.
In the Platts price assessment window, two barges of summer premium unleaded gasoline traded at $990 a tonne fob ARA, down from $994 a tonne on Tuesday.
By 1639 GMT, Eurobob's crack to dated Brent <BFO-> was up at around $10.80 a barrel from around $9.96 a barrel on Tuesday.
Brent crude oil futures were down 24 cents at $106.76 a barrel at 1644 GMT.
US RBOB gasoline futures in New York were up 0.22 percent at $2.8892 a gallon, and the prompt crack was at $21.35 a barrel.
NAPHTHA:
Three physical naphtha cargoes traded. Koch sold one to BP at $907 a tonne cif NWE for April 5-9, Glencore sold one to Koch at $900 a tonne for April 15-19. Gunvor sold one to Shell at $900 a tonne for April 13-17.
These trades were down from a bid-offer range of $907.50-$910 a tonne cif NWE on Tuesday.
The naphtha prompt crack was at around minus $5.17 a barrel, weakening slightly from around minus $5.03 a barrel on Tuesday.-Reuters
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.