Oil Products Summary at European Close: Gasoline Cracks Sink

Gasoline cracks have fallen further today to the lowest level since November. This is despite indications of rising demand last week. Falling pump prices and a surge in crude is squeezing margins.

• US gasoline crack down 1.3$/bbl at 12.94$/bbl
• US ULSD crack down 0.2$/bbl at 22.61$/bbl
• US retail gasoline demand saw a rise of 1.9% for the week ending August 24 (Sun-Sat) to reach 9.15m b/d, according to GasBuddy.
• Russia’s 441k b/d Omsk refinery is operating as normal despite a fire at the refinery, the refinery’s press service said, cited by Kommersant.
• Russian oil refineries increased exports of fuel oil to 1.1m bpd in the first 23 days of August, 200,000 bpd more than in July, Kommersant report.
• CDU capacity utilisation rates at China’s state-owned refineries are expected to edge down in the week to Aug. 29 according to OilChem, with Jilin Petrochem and Cangzhou Petrochem starting maintenance.
• China’s domestic refineries currently have around 57k mtpa of capacity offline due to maintenance, according to OilChem.
• Global airline passenger capacity is set to decline to 119.63m seats in the seven days commencing Aug. 26, OAG said.
• Colombia’s government said that the supply of aviation fuel has normalised after airlines warned of shortages due to a refinery outage in Cartagena, Bloomberg said.