Europe Gasoline Rises; Cepsa Plans Refineries Halt: Oil Products

Gasoline (MOGEEURB) barges rose to their highest price since September after purchases by Total SA and Cargill Inc. Gasoil for delivery in March increased on the ICE Futures Europe exchange on London.

Cia. Espanola de Petroleos SA, Spain’s second-largest refiner, plans to halt processing units for maintenance at three of its facilities this year.

Light Products

Gasoline barges for immediate loading in Amsterdam- Rotterdam-Antwerp traded at least four times at $1,068 a metric ton, according to a survey of brokers and traders monitoring the Argus Bulletin Board. That’s the most since Sept. 8 and compares with yesterday’s deals at $1,049 to $1,056 a ton.

Total and Cargill bought Eurobob grade, to which ethanol is added to make finished motor fuel, from Chevron Corp., Statoil ASA, Morgan Stanley and Noble Group.

The front-month gasoline crack increased to $7.31 a barrel from $7.25 yesterday, according to data from PVM Oil Associates Ltd., a London-based broker of crude and refined products.

Naphtha’s discount to Brent was little changed at $4.59 a barrel, PVM data show.

Middle Distillates

Gasoil for March increased $1.25 to $1,005.25 a ton on the ICE exchange at 11:33 a.m. London time. The April contract was up $1.75 at $1,002.50 a ton, narrowing the discount to March to $2.75 a ton, the smallest spread this week.

Gasoil’s crack, a measure of refining profitability, was at $14.75 a barrel, little changed from yesterday. Front-month Brent fell 0.2 percent to $119.90 a barrel on ICE.

Refineries

Cepsa, will shut a crude unit and visbreaker will be halted in May for two weeks and about three weeks, respectively, at its 223,000 barrel-a-day Gibraltar refinery, the Madrid-based company said today in an e- mailed statement.

A fluid catalytic cracker for gasoline production will be shut from mid-April to early June at its 180,000 barrel-a-day Huelva facility, the refiner said.

At the 85,000 barrel-a-day Tenerife plant, a crude unit will shut for about two weeks in March, Cepsa said. A platformer and hydro-desulfurization units will halt in September.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rupert Rowling in London at rrowling@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net