ARA gasoil stocks rose 6.3pc in the week to Thursday on higher imports from India, Russia and the United States but demand up the Rhine river was fairly strong, Dutch consultancy Insights Global said.

Waterborne June diesel imports into the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp refining and storage hub rose to their highest since January 2018 to just under 2.4 million tonnes, data from oil analytics firm Vortexa showed

The June figure was 37pc higher than that of May, and much higher than the 1.7 million tonne monthly Jan-May average, the data showed

The PCK refinery in eastern Germany has halted imports of Russian oil via the Druzhba pipeline after once again finding "slightly elevated" levels of organic chlorides, the refinery's owner Shell told Handelsblatt newspaper on Friday.