Northwest European gasoline refining margins inched up on Thursday as crude oil futures continued to fall. Loadings for Britain's Forties crude oil stream have been set at 16 cargoes in July, down slightly from 17 cargoes in June, a trading source familiar with the matter said. Russian oil output fell to 11.12 million barrels per day (bpd) for May 1-29 from 11.23 million bpd in April, two industry sources told Reuters, as the country deals with fallout from a crisis over tainted oil in the Druzhba pipeline.
Russia's Transneft has reached agreement on possible compensation plans for Russian oil companies whose crude shipped via the Druzhba pipeline was contaminated while in transit, the vice president of the pipeline firm told Kommersant daily. Contaminated Russian oil volumes sent to Europe are much smaller than claimed by Belarus and Poland, Russia's pipeline monopoly said, in the latest twist in the country's worst oil export crisis.
Greek refiner Motor Oil plans to spend 310 million euros ($345 million) to build a naphtha unit it said will boost core profit in the coming years. European downstream firm Varo Energy will partially restart its German Vohburg refinery in early June that has been shut since September last year after a fire, it said. Total will seek compensation for the losses caused by the contamination which has led to a halving of output at its Leuna refinery in Germany, Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne told shareholders on Wednesday.
US Gulf Coast gasoline inventories climbed last week to 84.7 million barrels, their highest on record for the month of May, according to data released by the US Energy Information Administration. Lawmakers in Nigeria approved a 129 billion naira ($422 million) payment to cover debts to local oil firms related to a fuel subsidy programme. Nigeria's state oil company NNPC has itself imported close to 90 percent of the nation's gasoline because the difference between the price cap and international fuel costs made it unprofitable for private marketers to import.
US energy giant ExxonMobil traded two Ebob gasoline barges based on Argus pricing for the first time on Wednesday, according to brokers.
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