A flurry of import bookings from the United States resulted in an expected record intake of roughly 2 million tonnes of diesel in August. Around 1 million tonnes of it is headed towards the Mediterranean, sources said.
Many of the imports were booked in the wake of the unplanned shutdown of Europe's largest refinery - Shell's 404,000 bpd Pernis unit in the Netherlands - following a fire in late July.
The hydrocracker at Pernis refinery restarted over the weekend, according to industry monitor Genscape. A small fire on Monday was quickly extinguished, and had no apparent impact on the restart.
Demand was also waning in inland markets in northwest Europe and also across the Mediterranean.
Despite an extended outage at Greece's 100,000 bpd Elefsina refinery, traders said Mediterranean demand had cooled
An outage at the smaller diesel unit at Israel's 100,000 bpd Ashdod refinery was not having a large impact on the broader market, traders said.
Refinery issues elsewhere had also boosted the market in recent weeks, but are now being resolved.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc expects to restore its 325,700 bpd Deer Park, Texas, refinery to normal operations by midweek, sources familiar with plant operations said.
The catalytic cracker at PetroChina's Dalian refinery is expected to resume operations in about three weeks following last week's fire, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Monday. A blaze broke out at the plant's 1.4 million-tonnes-per-annum catalytic cracker on Thursday night. It was extinguished with no reported casualties.
Kazakhstan may lift a ban on the export of gasoline and diesel a year earlier than planned to help local refineries increase profits, Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said on Monday.
GASOIL
No barges of gasoil with a 0.1 percent sulphur content traded. Bids came in at a $20 a tonne discount fob ARA to September diesel and offers at a $15 a tonne discount.
This compared with trades on Friday at discounts of $17 and $18 to September diesel futures.
Belgomine sold to Shell one barge of 50 ppm sulphur gasoil at a $6 a tonne fob ARA discount to September diesel. This compared with trades at discounts of $5 and $6 a tonne the previous trading day.
September ICE low-sulphur gasoil futures traded $3 a tonne lower at $469.25 a tonne. by 1545 GMT.
The September contract widened to a $1.50 cents a tonne contango versus the October contract, compared with a 50 cent discount on Friday.
The prompt diesel refining margin was at $11.53 a barrel, down from $12.19 a barrel.
DIESEL
Diesel barges traded in the afternoon window at discounts of $1.50-$2 a tonne fob ARA to September diesel futures, slightly weaker than Friday's trades.
No cargoes traded.
JET FUEL
No barges traded. Offers came in at a $36.50 a tonne premium to September diesel futures.
Vitol sold to BP one cargo at $37 a tonne cif Le Havre above September diesel.
FUEL OIL
Barges of fuel oil with a sulphur content of 3.5 percent traded at $289.50-$289.75 a tonne fob ARA, up from $286.75-$287.50 a tonne on Friday.