Oil Products Summary at European Close: Cracks Tick Up

Diesel markets remain supported after a further attack on Lukoil’s refining facility in Volgograd raises potential concerns for supply disruption. The US Gasoline crack is also stronger today and has been oscillating between 16.5$/bbl-20$/bbl range since mid-January with support from refinery outages amid uncertainty over demand.

• US gasoline crack up 0.9$/bbl at 18.53$/bbl.
• US ULSD crack up 0.5$/bbl at 40.33$/bbl.
• Kuwait’s 615,000 bpd Al-Zour refinery reached full production capacity for the first time on February 4 KIPIC announced via X.
• ExxonMobil has halted several units on Monday as part of a scheduled maintenance at the 131kbpd Fos-sur-Mer oil refinery in France according to a community alert.
• The fire at a pipeline of Lukoil’s Volgograd oil refinery has been extinguished following a drone attack, and the facility is operating normally, BP’s spokesperson said, cited by Tass.
• Russian refinery rates have fallen to a near two-month low following Ukrainian drone strikes according to a Bloomberg source.
• Russian gasoline production dropped 2% in January y/y to 3.49mn metric tons according to Kommersant citing refinery outages as the driver.
• Around 15-35 Aframax’s could be switching to clean trade in the coming months according to Kpler.
• Feedstock imports for crude, bitumen mix and fuel oil to China’s independent refineries in Jan fell to the lowest since June 2022 according to tanker-tracking data by OilChem.
• Declining diesel stocks and increased domestic prices in Germany are supporting import margins, despite low actual import demand, according to Argus.
• Global passenger capacity is set to rise by 0.63% in the week commencing Feb. 5 to 104.62m seats, according to OAG data.