Europe Gasoline-dips in light trade to $600 a tonne
LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) - European gasoline prices dipped in very light trade on Friday, tracking losses in crude and U.S. gasoline futures.
Trade was light across oil contracts, with a long holiday weekend in the United States limiting moves.
PRICES
* Premium unleaded 10ppm gasoline barges traded at six-week lows of $595-$601 in early trade, but no deals were done in the evening trading window. Prices closed at $600-$607 on Thursday.
The dealing was relatively thin, with about 6,000 tonnes changing hands throughout the day.
* The drop in the Eurograde gasoline barge prices outstripped a sell-off in crude oil, pushing its crack to dated Brent BFO- to down by about 40 cents to $6.10 a barrel, the weakest since early May.
* Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading down 65 cents at $66.00 a barrel by 1611 GMT. [O/R]
* U.S. RBOB gasoline futures RBc1 were trading down more than 2 cents at $1.7705 a gallon.
SWAPS
* Gasoline swaps also fell sharply. The balance of July was $602 a tonne and the backwardation between July and August was 50 cents a tonne, narrowing from 75 cents on Thursday. August/September was $3.25, compared with $3.75.
* Cracks weakened slightly to $5.25 a barrel from $5.30.
INVENTORIES
* The increase in U.S. gasoline inventories this week was likely to limit arbitrage export opportunities from Europe, traders said. [EIA/S]
* In Europe, the independent tanks at the ARA hub held 710,000 tonnes of gasoline, compared with 725,000 tonnes last week and 771,000 tonnes a year earlier, a Dutch oil analyst said on Thursday. [ARA/]
* Genscape, the U.S. based power industry monitor, said in an interview this week it plans to launch a monitoring service for the ARA hub before the end of this year. [ID:nL3557616]
REFINERIES
* Refinery restarts in Europe depressed overall oil product prices.
* Spanish oil and gas firm Repsol (REP.MC: Quote, Profile, Research) temporarily restarted its 100,000 barrel-per-day Cartagena refinery on Thursday after a shutdown since April due to poor margins, a company spokesman said. [ID:nL2912551]
* That followed Total's Vlissingen refinery, which began to start units after a planned maintenance since late May.
NAPHTHA
* Naphtha was bid at $565 a tonne cif NWE, down from $569 a tonne on Thursday. (Reporting by David Sheppard; Editing by Anthony Barker)
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