LONDON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Northwest European gasoline refining profit margins fell slightly to $6.13 per barrel on Friday, weighed down by a rise in inventories and slower export demand.
About 4,000 metric tons of Eurobob E5 barges traded, which BP sold to Trafigura and ExxonMobil.
Shell sold 10,000 tons of Eurobob E10 to Varo.
Gasoline stocks independently held in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose by 4% to 1.41 million metric tons in the week to Jan. 2 on slow trading activity, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.
U.S. gasoline stocks USOILG=ECI also rose, gaining 7.7 million barrels on the week to 231.4 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 0.3 million-barrel build.
EU and UK gasoline exports reached 910,000 barrels per day in December, Kpler data show, down from 1.2 million bpd in November.
A closed arbitrage to the United States is weighing on European gasoline prices, Sparta Commodities analyst Philip Jones-Lux said.
Open arbitrages into Latin America and Africa remain supportive for European gasoline components demand, while a contango in the market structure for the rest of the first quarter is expected to encourage storage plays in the ARA region, he added.
| Trade | Bid | Offer | Prev. | Seller | Buyer |
Ebob Barges MOC Platts E5 (fob ARA) EUROBOB-ARA | $714 | |||||
Ebob Barges E10 Platts (fob ARA) | ||||||
Ebob Barges Argus E5 (fob AR) | $703.25 on 4KT | $694.75 on 4KT | BP | Trafigura, Exxon | ||
Ebob Barges E10 Argus (fob AR) | $702.65 on 10KT | $695.25 on 5KT | Shell | Varo | ||
Feb. swap (fob ARA) | $710.75 | $710.50 | ||||
Premium Unleaded (fob ARA) PU-10PP-ARA | ||||||
Cargoes (fob MED) | Jan +$0.75 | BGN | Totsa | |||
Cargoes (cif NWE) |
| |||||
Naphtha (cif NWE) NAF-C-NWE |
Ebob crack (per barrel) | $6.13 | Prev. $6.27 |
Brent futures | LCOc1 | |
Rbob | RBc1 | |
Rbob crack | RBc1-CLc1 |
(Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar;
Editing by Alison Williams)
((Ahmad.Ghaddar@thomsonreuters.com; +442075424435; Reuters Messaging: ahmad.ghaddar.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))