LONDON: Gasoline refining margins in northwest Europe fell further on Thursday on limited US demand, due to high stocks, but west African demand stopped further losses.
After a few relatively low-volume months, west African demand, particularly Nigerian, was picking up ahead of the holiday period, traders said. The seasonal boost in demand has already led to fuel queues in Nigeria.
The shut-down of some units at the Grangemouth refinery following the Forties pipeline outage and other recent refinery hiccups such as at Lavera and Bilbao have failed to boost prices in the over-supplied gasoline market.
Gasoline stocks held in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp storage and refining hub were relatively steady on the week to Thursday, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International 594showed, while naphtha dipped slightly.
Total says 109,000 barrels-per-day Feyzin oil refinery in France was operating at reduced rates on Thursday due to strike action.
A reformer was shut on Thursday after a fire in the East Plant at Citgo Petroleum Corp's 157,500 bpd Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery, said sources familiar with plant operations.
GASOLINE
No barges of eurobob gasoline traded during the afternoon session. Bids were seen at $590 a tonne fob ARA, up from $583-$584 a tonne on Wednesday.
Some 9,000 tonnes traded elsewhere during the day at $587-$591 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam, up from $585.50-$598 a tonne. BP, Shell, Litasco and NIC sold all barges to Gunvor.
Gunvor sold four barges of premium unleaded gasoline to Total. Three were done at $594 a tonne fob ARA and one was at $593 a tonne. The levels were down compared with $597 and $596 in the previous session.
The January swap stood at $581.50 a tonne at the close, down from $599 a tonne.
The benchmark EBOB gasoline refining margin fell to $5.95 a barrel, down from $6.19 a barrel at the previous close.
Brent crude futures rose by 46 cents to $62.90 a barrel by 1649 GMT.
US front-month RBOB gasoline futures were up 1.63 percent at $1.6735 a gallon.
The RBOB crack versus US crude was up 7.72 percent at $13.53 a barrel.
NAPHTHA
Vilma bought a cargo from BP at $566 a tonne cif northwest Europe, up from a deal done on Wednesday at $564.50 a tonne.
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