Europe Distillates-Cracks gain on Pernis outage

LONDON: Europe's diesel refining ended the week slightly higher supported by an outage at Europe's largest oil refinery that is expected to last at least until mid-August.

The shutdown at Shell's 404,000 Pernis oil refinery in Rotterdam is likely to last until at least the second half of August.

Oil product stocks in the region are already falling as a result of the shutdown.

Traders in Asia, the Middle East and the United States were booking ships to send diesel and jet fuel into Europe following the outage at Shell's 404,000 bpd Pernis refinery.

Royal Dutch Shell is considering expanding the capacity of one of the 140,000 bpd Wesseling refinery to make oil products that meet an upcoming cap on the sulphur content of fuels used in shipping.

Three workers were injured, one severely, in a fire that also temporarily shut the small crude distillation unit (CDU) at Motiva Enterprises' 603,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur refinery in Texas on Thursday, said sources familiar with the plant operations.

GASOIL

Barges of 0.1 percent sulphur content gasoil traded at a $19 a tonne discounts fob ARA to ICE August Low Sulphur Gasoil futures, compared with discounts the day earlier of $17 a tonne.

No cargoes traded.

No barges of 50 ppm sulphur gasoil traded.

August Low Sulphur Gasoil futures were trading $5.50 a tonne lower at $487.50 a tonne at 1533 GMT.

The August contract was trading at a premium of 50 cents a tonne to the September contract, 50 cents narrower.

The prompt diesel refining margin was at $12.96 a barrel, up from $12.79 a barrel at the previous close.

DIESEL

Seven diesel barges traded at flat fob ARA to August diesel, unchanged. Litasco, Vitol and Total sold to Shell, BP and Glencore.

No cargoes traded.

JET FUEL

Castleton sold two barges to Noble at a $32 a tonne premiums to August diesel futures, compared with a trade at a $33 a tonne premium on Thursday.

There were no cargo trades.

FUEL OIL

Barges of fuel oil with a sulphur content of 3.5 percent traded at $298.50-$300.25 a tonne fob ARA, compared with $300-$301.50 a tonne on Thursday.