Diesel Cracks Pull Back but Gasoline to Highest Since mid Dec

Diesel spreads have eased back from highs last week with warmer weather expected to help ease refinery outages in the US and with ongoing concern for soft demand. Gasoline however is still in an upward trend since Jan 8 with the US spread the highest since mid Dec.

• The suspension of loadings at the Ust-Luga export terminal on the Baltic Sea, following a fire on 21 January amid a suspected drone attack was earlier supportive but Transneft have reported the resumption of loadings with the fire extinguished according to Reuters.
• US refinery outages remain high with the potential that some recent shutdowns due to severe weather run into an expected heavy spring maintenance season. Severe winter weather had shut about 15% of the US Gulf Coast’s oil-refining capacity, equal to around 1.5mbpd of capacity offline as of Jan 17 according to data from Wood Mackenzie.
• Gasoline gains today come despite a 6.1% decline in US gasoline demand to 7.78mbpd last week according to GasBuddy and 6.9% below the four-week average.
• The gasoline production capacity at the Norsi refinery in Russia was expected to restore more than 70% of capacity in the coming days according to Reuters on Friday but repairs could last until the end of March.
  • US 321 crack up 0.2$/bbl at 24.67$/bbl
  • US gasoline crack up 0.8$/bbl at 18.39$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack down -1.1$/bbl at 37.24$/bbl
  • EU Gasoline-Brent up 0.3$/bbl at 13.28$/bbl
  • EU Gasoil-Brent down -0.2$/bbl at 25.27$/bbl