Benchmark northwest European gasoline refining margins rose on Thursday on low stock levels in Europe, which followed bullish stock data from the United States in the previous session. Supporting levels were the outage of a crude distillation unit and hydrotreater at BP's Rotterdam refinery on Tuesday and fresh cargoes fixed to the United States.
The fixtures included the Alpine Minute booked by Shell to the US Gulf and due to load May 29-31, and the Stealth Falcon fixed by Glencore due to load on May 25.
Gasoline stocks in independently held storage at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp refining and storage hub fell nearly 8 percent in the week to Thursday to just under 1 million tonnes, according to data from Dutch consultancy PJK International. Citgo Petroleum Corp restarted late on Wednesday the crude distillation unit at its 157,500-barrels-per-day Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery, sources familiar with plant operations said.
No EBOB barges traded in the afternoon window, but a bid surfaced at $754 a tonne fob ARA, compared with bid levels of $751 a tonne on Wednesday.
Elsewhere, 6,000 tonnes of Eurobob gasoline traded at $755-$756 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam, up from trades at $750.50 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam the previous day. Total, Van Raak and Gunvor sold to Vitol and Finco.
Statoil sold a barge of premium unleaded gasoline to Total at $757 a tonne fob ARA, on par with the previous day's deal at $757 a tonne fob ARA.
The June swap stood at $754.00 a tonne at the close, down slightly from $754.50 a tonne.
The benchmark EBOB gasoline refining margin rose to $11.15 a barrel from $9.75 a barrel.
Brent crude futures were down 65 cents at $79.15 a barrel by 1601 GMT.
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