Oil Products Summary at European Close: Cracks on the Rise

Diesel cracks spreads have held most of their gains amid support from Russian refinery outages. This is countering weakness in US demand and signs of a recovery in US run rates.

• US gasoline crack up 0.6$/bbl at 33.34$/bbl
• US ULSD crack up 0.6$/bbl at 34.08$/bbl
• BP’s 435kbpd Whiting, Indiana, refinery returned to normal operations after the plant wide power outage on 1 February, a BP spokesperson said on Monday.
• TotalEnergies has been preparing the restart of the 76kbpd FCC at the 238kbpd Port Arthur, Texas, refinery as of 15 March, which was shut by a leak on 10 March, sources told Reuters.
• Valero has restarted the 265kbpd CDU and 172kbpd VDU at the 335kbpd Port Arthur, Texas, refinery on 15 March following a shutdown on 15 January according to WoodMac.
• India’s sales of diesel and gasoline fell by 0.5% and 0.4% respectively on the month in the first half of March, data from India’s state-owned refiners showed.
• US retail gasoline demand saw a rise of 3.1% for the week ending March 17 (Sun-Sat) according to GasBuddy data.
• Asia’s diesel cracks are under pressure amid a supply glut, according to Reuters.
• CDU rates among state-owned refineries are projected to fall in the week to March 22, according to OilChem.
• German diesel demand has been rising with traded diesel volumes reported to Argus rising by 14% on the week in the seven days to 15 March, due to more buying interest from farmers, construction and transportation, traders told Argus.
• Drone strikes on Russian refineries last week could impact about 50kb/d of gasoil/diesel exports, according to Wood Mackenzie on Mar. 15 via Bloomberg.