Mid-Day Oil Products Summary: Cracks Continue Pullback

Diesel and gasoline crack spreads are continuing their earlier pull back, driven by soft demand and healthy supply.

• US gasoline crack down 0.7$/bbl at 23.07$/bbl
• US ULSD crack down 0.2$/bbl at 23.57$/bbl
• Russian refinery processing in July was close to its highest since the start of the year as summer maintenance wound down.
• Motiva began restarting its 81,000-bpd gasoline producing FCC on Sunday morning at its 626,000 bpd Port Arthur refinery, Texas according to Reuters sources.
• CDU capacity utilisation rates at China’s state-owned refineries are expected to rise further in the week to Aug. 8, according to OilChem, as Dalian Xitai ramps up production after completing maintenance.
• China’s exports of refined products – namely gasoline, gasoil, and jet fuel – totalled 2.55m mt in July, according to OilChem.
• Japan’s Cosmo Energy has restarted the 75kbpd No.1 crude distillation unit at its Chiba refinery near Tokyo on August 4, according to Bloomberg citing a company spokesperson.
• Gasoline imports to Japan are expected to remain high through August as refineries undergo planned maintenance and after recent outages during the peak summer demand season, according to Reuters sources.
• Global airline passenger capacity is set to decline to 122.83m seats in the seven days commencing from Aug. 05, OAG said.