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Editor Steven McGinn, steven.mcginn@icis.com
Crude and gasoline futures soared on Wednesday to send cash gasoline higher as blenders moved to making summer grade fuel.
The energy complex turned a blind eye to the larger-than-expected builds in crude oil and gasoline stockpiles last week and focused on the weak foreign exchange market and positive economic data.
Gasoline futures led the charging commodities sector with a 5.10-cent addition to the front-month April contract, which settled at $2.2476/gal. The second-month benchmark inflated to $2.2494/gal, up 4.68 cents.
The WTI light sweet crude futures contract moved above $80/bbl and finished NYMEX trading at $80.87/bbl.
Refiners in the US Gulf moved to lighter, lower Reid vapor pressure summer gasoline production. Traders in the USG region moved M2 regular unleaded gasoline at a 10.70-cent discount to the April screen. That compares with M4 prices at a 13.00-cent on Tuesday.
In the New York Harbor region, traders still had M4 gasoline to trade with deals done between 9 and 10 cents below April RBOB. Summer-blended M2 gasoline was priced at minus-7.75 cents.
NYH V4 was bid at 2.00 cents and offered at 3.00 cents, putting the assessment at 2.50 cents below the merc, a trader said.
In today’s data released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), the rise in crude inventories nearly tripled analysts’ estimates with a 4.1m bbl build. Gasoline in storage moved up by 700,000 bbl after expectations of a 400,000 bbl build.
ExxonMobil had an operational issue at its flagship refinery in Baytown, Texas, but industry sources said there were no details available on the problem.
In Louisiana, a fluid catalytic cracker was back in operation at Shell’s Norco refinery after a short-term outage on Monday, according to sources.
A 40 N+A naphtha barge at 3.3 RVP was sold on the US Gulf spot market for 5.50 cents under USG M2 cash gasoline, multiple sources said. That transaction is within the posted differential range and keeps it unchanged versus Tuesday.
Rising cash gasoline drove N+A prices higher.
However, paraffinic naphtha values dipped on receding natural gasoline prices.
European spot MTBE prices dropped by $12-13/tonne, but the move was not enough to budge the current USG MTBE spot range.
Inactivity on the USG spot methanol market kept prices steady.
