Oil Products Mid-Day Summary: Cracks Ease Back

Gasoline and distillate cracks are easing back after gaining ground yesterday. Diesel remains down on the week amid demand uncertainty and signs of recovering US refinery utilisation. However, gasoline is set for weekly gains.

• US gasoline crack down -0.2$/bbl at 29.86$/bbl
• US ULSD crack down -0.7$/bbl at 32.49$/bbl
• Phillips 66 Sweeny refinery Texas, will restart unit 35 (a CRR reformer) from Friday after planned maintenance according to a Texas Commission filing.
• Russian diesel exports from key western ports are expected to fall by 11% in March from February amid lower crude processing rates due to drone attacks on refineries.
• The March oil products loading schedule from Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse is expected to increase by 21.4% m/m in March to 540k metric tons from 416k metric tons scheduled for February according to Reuters sources.
• Diesel and gasoline sales reported by the top-three Indian state refiners Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum who own 90% of retail fuel outlets increased in February, according to Bloomberg based on company data.
• Pemex domestic refineries increased utilisation rates to the highest since May 2017, according to company data compiled by Bloomberg.
• China gasoline demand is forecast to slip in March according to OilChem, likely to weigh on prices.