LONDON: Benchmark northwest European gasoline margins rose further on Tuesday to about $2.8 a barrel, buoyed by refinery energies in the United States.

A deep freeze continued to wreak havoc on the US energy sector, bringing operations to a halt at the Houston Ship channel, while several of the biggest oil refineries remained offline in the nation’s largest crude-producing state.

The weather, unusually harsh for US southern states, knocked out more than 3 million barrels of daily refining capacity in the US Gulf, according to Reuters calculations, and industry analysts say crude production could be affected for days or weeks.—Reuters