Oil Products Summary at European Close: Diesel Cracks Down

Diesel cracks have resumed their downward trend to be trading lower on the day, while gasoline cracks are edging up. Seasonally weak diesel demand is weighing against expectations of a US product inventory draw in this week’s EIA data.

• US gasoline crack up 0.1$/bbl at 30$/bbl
• US ULSD crack down 0.6$/bbl at 25.44$/bbl
• Nigeria’s new mega Dangote refinery is cutting diesel and jet fuel prices in the domestic fuel market – the third time since product deliveries began in March as the refinery ramps up production.
• Russian oil product exports slumped to a post-pandemic low in H1 April, according to Platts’ tanker tracking data.
• Russia's Orsk oil refinery resumed full operations on April 23 after a two-week outage due to flooding in Russia’s Urals region, according to Reuters sources.
• China’s refined oil exports totalled 4.55m mt in March, up 58.28% on the month, according to OilChem, citing GACC data.
• Exxon’s Baytown 564kbd refinery, Texas, has shut a hydrocracker since April 18 as well as two furnace stacks on its largest crude unit according to a Bloomberg source.
• Annual maintenance work is starting at refineries in Hungary and Slovakia, according to Mol via Bloomberg.
• Mexico is boosting its fuel oil exports because of higher domestic refinery runs according to Vortexa.
• Kuwait’s KPC has signed a term agreement with Qatar Energy to supply VLSFO from July-June 2025, Argus said.