NEW DELHI: Asia’s gasoline refining profit margin inched higher on Wednesday as US and Middle Eastern stocks declined after large build ups in the last three weeks.

The refining margin, or crack, rose to $7.99 a barrel, compared with $7.84 a barrel in the last session. Gasoline margins have weakened by more than 71% in July on signs of slowing demand and increasing supplies.

In physical markets, energy trader Vitol bought a cargo each of the benchmark 92-octane and the finer 97-octane grade of motor fuel, totalling 100,000 barrels in volume. Unipec purchased 50,000 barrels of the benchmark grade.

Stocks of light distillates at the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone (FOIZ) declined by 149,000 barrels to a two-week low of 6.440 million barrels in the week to July 25, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.

US gasoline registered a bigger-than-expected fall by 1.1 million barrels, market sources said.

The number of tankers used for storing fuel oil along the Singapore Strait has risen since the Ukraine war broke out and could rise further as more of Russia’s supplies hit by sanctions head to Asia, industry sources and analysts said.