LONDON: Gasoline refining margins in northwest Europe fell to nearly zero on Wednesday as demand in the region and overseas remained weak.
Gasoline cracks were not expected to improve in the coming weeks as refineries are set to complete seasonal maintenance and resume production.
"Refineries are coming back from maintenance without too much demand in the region, so potentially cracks can go lower," a trader said.
Gasoline stocks in the US East Coast, a key export market for European refiners, fell last week by 1.11 million barrels to 56.058 million barrels, but remained at high levels compared to previous year.
The transatlantic arbitrage was seen as closed for most traders, with only three new tankers booked on Wednesday by Phillips 66, Cargill and Statoil to ship gasoline from Europe to the United States, shipping data showed.
"It looks rough. The market is in contango for the whole winter and I can't see an arbitrage open anywhere," another trader said.
Algeria's state-run Sonatrach issued a tender to buy three cargoes of gasoline of 30,000 tonnes for November delivery into the ports of Algiers and Arzew, traders said.
GASOLINE
No barges of benchmark Eurobob gasoline traded in the Platts price assessment window.
Ahead of the window, six barges traded at $918-$921 a tonne fob ARA, up from $911-$922 a tonne on Tuesday. Gunvor, BP, Vitol, Total and Chevron sold to Shell, Trafigura and Cargill.
No barges of premium unleaded traded for a third day. Discussions were in the $920-$926 a tonne fob ARA range.
Eurobob's crack to dated Brent was at around $0.731 a barrel, down from $1.106 a barrel on Tuesday.
Brent crude oil futures were up 44 cents at $109.45 a barrel by 1636 GMT.
US RBOB gasoline futures in New York were up 0.89 percent at $2.6331 a gallon, and the crack was at $12.48 a barrel.
NAPHTHA
Three naphtha cargoes traded at $915-$916 a tonne cif NWE, up from $901 a tonne on Tuesday. BP, Litasco and Koch sold to Glencore.
The naphtha prompt crack strengthened to minus $6.62 a barrel from minus $7.47 a barrel, according to Reuters calculations.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.