US Gasoline Cracks Highest Since August amid Tighter Supplies

US gasoline margins have risen to the highest since August with support from unplanned refinery outages combined with a heavy maintenance season. The front month US gasoline cracks spread has risen to over $30/bbl this week amid tighter supplies although the diesel crack has fallen since mid February.

• Gasoline gains are driven by a “combination of strong spring maintenance, ongoing octane tightness and competition for yield with distillate markets,” said George Dix at Energy Aspects.
• “The diesel-gasoline gap narrowed but still not at yield switching levels,” Dix said.
• “Market sentiment has flipped from oversupply in December and going into January, to undersupply,” said Austin Lin at Wood Mackenzie
• The market has started to realize there’s going to be a lot of spring maintenance and it is going to start early, Lin said.
• The freeze in January and Whiting outage for almost a month at this point has “taken a lot of capacity out of the market from a supply perspective,” Lin added.
  • US 321 crack down -0.3$/bbl at 31.28$/bbl
  • US gasoline crack down -0.2$/bbl at 29.99$/bbl
  • US ULSD crack down -0.4$/bbl at 33.86$/bbl