PARIS: Benchmark northwest European gasoline barge refining margins were broadly steady at about $7.70 a barrel on Wednesday, as a fall in U.S. weekly inventories supported the market.

U.S. gasoline stocks fell by 1.6 million barrels to 248.4 million barrels last week, Energy Information Administration data showed.

Nigerian fuel retailer MRS Oil Nigeria said gasoline it had received from Litasco, the Swiss trading arm of Russia’s Lukoil, was unusable.

The west African nation faces fuel shortages after gasoline was delivered with too high methanol content. Methanol is a regular additive to gasoline in small amounts.

European refiners’ stocks of crude and oil products stood at about 1.01 billion barrels in January, down 13% year on year, but up 1.4% from December, Euroilstock data showed.

Refinery crude processing at 9.26 million barrels per day was up 8.4% from a year earlier but down 1.4% from December levels.