Plentiful inventories in the key US East Coast market weighed on gasoline refining margins on Thursday though further losses were mitigated by Shell's Pernis refinery outage and Mexican demand. Mexico's PMI continued to buy European gasoline this week, one industry source said, despite the restart of a major refinery to supplement the domestic market.
Mexico's 330,000 barrel per day Salina Cruz refinery resumed operations on July 31 after being shutdown since mid June due to a fire. Gasoline stocks rose on the week due to higher import volumes and as export volumes to West Africa and Asia Pacific slowed, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International showed.
Oil traders are rushing to secure vessels to ship refined fuel from the Middle East to Europe after a Dutch refinery outage made the route profitable, pushing freight rates to multi-month highs, traders and shipbrokers said on Thursday. Gunvor sold to Varo one barge of Eurobob gasoline at $547 a tonne fob ARA during the afternoon session, up from a deal on Wednesday at $544 a tonne fob ARA.
Earlier in the day, 12,000 tonnes of Eurobob barges traded at $542.50-$553 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam, up from $543 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam on Wednesday. Gunvor, Total and CCMA sold to BP, Shell and Varo. Shell sold two barges of premium unleaded gasoline to Total at $561.50 a tonne, up from deals on Wednesday at $555 a tonne.
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