Gasoline refining margins in northwest Europe rose on Friday as an outage at a big catalytic cracking unit at a UK refinery tightened supplies. Valero Energy's 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) FCC at its Pembroke refinery in Wales was down earlier this week, trade sources said.
It was not immediately clear when the unit might return and the outage is understood to be unplanned. Traders were expecting another wave of gasoline exports from Europe to the Middle East in the coming weeks due to a busy maintenance season in the region. A group of mainly German carmakers will open ultra-fast electric vehicle charging stations this year and plans a pan-European network of 400 by 2020, hoping to close Tesla's lead.
No trades of Eurobob gasoline barges emerged in the afternoon trading window. Earlier in the day 10,000 tonnes traded at $619-$622 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam, up from $608-$620 a tonne in the previous session. Shell and BP sold to Gunvor and Varo. Gunvor sold to Total two barges of premium unleaded gasoline at $618 a tonne fob ARA up from $612 a tonne fob ARA.
The December swap stood at $585.50 a tonne at the close, up from $577 a tonne. The benchmark EBOB gasoline refining margin rose to $12.192 a barrel from $11.46 a barrel on Thursday. Brent crude futures were up 64 cents at $61.26 a barrel at 1716 GMT.