LONDON: Northwest European gasoline refining margins rose sharply following a large draw in US inventories and a decision to close Philadelphia's PES refinery.
US gasoline stocks fell last week by 996,000 barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 288,000-barrel gain, according to EIA data.
Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) is expected to seek to permanently shut its oil refinery in the city after a massive fire caused substantial damage to the complex, two sources familiar with the plans said on Tuesday. The mayor of Philadelphia later confirmed the plan.
The refinery supplies around 55,000 bpd of gasoline to the New York region and the outage was expected to lead to a sharp rise in imports.
So far, around nine tankers have been booked out of Europe on the transatlantic route, according to brokers, traders and shipping data.
The relatively mute response was due to a sharp rise in freight rates on the arbitrage route, which jumped from around 125 points on the world scale last week to 170 points this week, according to traders and shipping data.
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