Gasoline refining margins in northwest Europe fell on Friday due to lower barge demand, but tightening transatlantic stocks capped further losses. Barge trading activity has eased in recent days after the Cressier refinery in Switzerland restarted and as low water levels on the Rhine river slowed buying. But lower stocks on both sides of the Atlantic are giving gasoline margins a floor.
Gasoline stocks in independent storage in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) hub dropped 4.5 percent in the week to Thursday to their lowest level since November 2016, according to data from Dutch consultancy PJK International. US gasoline stocks dropped last week by 3.7 million barrels to 237.3 million barrels, according to the Energy Information Administration, a much larger drawdown than expected by analysts.
"We forecast that French drivers will consume around 160,000 b/d of gasoline in 2017, up 7.3 percent y-o-y, with growth to slow significantly going forward," Vienna-based consultancy JBC Energy said in a note. Venezuela's state-run company PDVSA this week awarded Rosneft a 9 million barrel tender to import up to 18 cargoes of heavy naphtha which is used to dilute Venezuela's extra heavy oil, sources said.
Trading firm Elemento Services was awarded a separate tender to supply up to 720,000 barrels of MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) to Venezuela, a component used to oxygenate gasoline, a PDVSA source said.
Gunvor sold to Vitol one barge of Eurobob gasoline in the afternoon trading window at $485 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp. Outside the window, some 14,000 tonnes of eurobob barges traded at $485.50-$495 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam, compared with $497-$501 a tonne on Thursday. Shell sold a barge of premium unleaded gasoline to BP at $499 a tonne fob ARA.
The July swap stood at $490 a tonne at the close, down from $504.50 a tonne. Brent crude futures were down $1.52 a barrel at $46.59 a barrel at 1602 GMT. The benchmark ebob gasoline refining margin fell to $12.08 a barrel from $12.90.
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