SINGAPORE: Gasoil cracks ended the week lower on sluggish regional demand and rising inventories of the fuel in key storage hubs helping to limit prompt arbitrage opportunities.
Asia's March 500ppm gasoil crack fell from $15.21 a barrel at the start of the week to $14.65 a barrel on Friday.
Weakness in gasoil cracks should not be too surprising given the strong distillate fuel oil stock build reported in the United States, ING Bank said in a note to clients on Friday.
Gasoil inventories in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) oil hub were also up, climbing to their highest since May 2017, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International showed on Thursday.
However, expectations of healthy demand in 2018 is supportive of gasoil refining margins for the remainder of the year.
Researchers at JBC Energy said in a note on Friday their revised outlook for gasoil demand growth this year was almost level with that of 2017 at just under 500,000 barrels per day.
"Our demand outlook for clean products is tending to grow more bullish for complex refinery margins," said JBC.
ARA STOCKS
- Gasoil stocks held in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) storage and refining hub climbed 2 percent in the week to Thursday, rising for an eighth straight week to nine-month highs amid weak inland demand, PJK International said.
- Gasoil stocks stood at 3.082 million tonnes, up from 3.012 million tonnes in the previous week.
- Jet fuel stocks slipped 2 percent to 614,000 tonnes in the week to Feb. 8, from 627,000 tonnes in the previous week, the data showed.
- In Singapore, onshore gasoil and jet fuel stocks slipped to a two-week low of 9.144 million barrels in the week to Feb. 7, down 2 percent from the previous week, the latest data from International Enterprise (IE) showed.
- Singapore middle distillates inventories were 29 percent lower compared with year-ago levels.
TENDERS
- Emirates General Petroleum Corporation (Emarat) is seeking up to 85,000 tonnes of jet fuel for March delivery at Jebel Ali terminal in two separate cargoes in a tender closing on Feb. 12 with validity to Feb. 14, sources said.
- Emarat is first seeking to import 45,000 tonnes of the fuel on March 14-15, then another 40,000 of the aviation fuel on March 19-20.
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