Oil Products Summary at European Close: Gasoline Cracks Tick Up

Gasoline cracks have ticked up during European afternoon trading, while diesel cracks have continued to slide. Gasoline refining margins are likely to be supported by the seasonal rise in demand during this time of year.

• US gasoline crack up 0.1$/bbl at 29.94$/bbl
• US ULSD crack down -1.3$/bbl at 32.29$/bbl
• US retail gasoline demand saw a decrease of 0.3% for the week ending March 3 but was 1.7% above the four-week average according to GasBuddy.
• Crude processed by Russian refiners rose 226kb/d to 5.44mb/d in the period Feb. 15-28 according to Bloomberg sources.
• Phillips 66 Wood River 356kb/d oil refinery suffered a unit upset and flaring event at 9:50om on the evening of Mar. 3.
• China’s refined oil exports were 3.1m mt in February, up 4% on the month, according to OilChem.
• China will raise its retail prices of gasoline and diesel from March 5 by 125 y/mt (~ $17.6/mt) and 120 y/mt respectively.
• The arbitrage economics for Europe-East of Suez naphtha flows are likely to become unworkable in the near-term, according to Argus.
• Global scheduled airline capacity has fallen by 0.61% in the week commencing March 4, according to OAG.
• The global MR tanker market is experiencing notable shifts with East of Suez ton-miles growing faster than in the West according to Kpler.