Diesel Cargoes Diverting from EU to US

Four vessels carrying about 2.9mbbls of diesel have switched destination from Europe to US in recent weeks according to Vortexa data and Bloomberg tanker tracking data.

• Warm weather in Europe in recent months has helped to ease pressure on European diesel supplies while US has struggled with severe cold in December causing a 12% drop in refinery utilisation and with refineries taking time to come back online. The Colonial pipeline outage earlier this month added to the supply disruptions to the New York Harbour area.
• Europe has been increasing distillate inventory levels ahead of the EU ban on Russian products next month but stocks remain below normal. Supplies have increased from Middle East, US and China while maintaining high Russian supplies ahead of the ban.
• Data reported last week showed ARA Gasoil inventories are about 10.6% below the five year average and US distillate stocks 16.9% below average.
  • US gasoline crack up 0.1$/bbl at 26.84$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack up 0$/bbl at 56.37$/bbl
  • EU Gasoline-Brent up 1$/bbl at 13.95$/bbl
  • EU Gasoil-Brent up 0.4$/bbl at 36.2$/bbl