Midcontinent Gasoline Strengthens as August Becomes Lead Month

Gasoline strengthened in the Midcontinent to trade at a premium to futures for the first time in five days.

Conventional, 87-octane gasoline in the Midcontinent region strengthened to a 1.13-cent premium to August futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 2:33 p.m., after trading at a 13.75- cent discount to July futures on June 29, the day that contract expired. July futures were trading at a 9.54-cent premium to August futures that day, making today’s spread a 5.34-cent improvement.

Last week, Phillips 66 (PSX) “placed quite a few barrels in the Midcontinent and took it down to that level,” said Steve Mosby, vice president at ADO Energy LLC, a supply consultant in Kansas City, Kansas. “They were just long a lot of gasoline. Today could be a function of getting that value back.”

Conventional gasoline in Chicago weakened 1 cent to a discount of 5.5 cents a gallon versus futures. Gulf Coast gasoline strengthened 0.87 cent to a discount of 10.88 cents a gallon against New York futures.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dan Murtaugh in Houston at dmurtaugh@bloomberg.net; Barbara J Powell in Dallas at bpowell4@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net