US Cash Products - USG gasoline up; NYH, Midco soft

NEW YORK, April 3 (Reuters) - U.S. Gulf Coast gasoline edged up on Thursday but the Midwest and New York Harbor eased with a big drop in weekly national inventories countered by lower demand and higher output, traders said.

According to government data released on Wednesday, U.S. gasoline inventories fell by 4.5 million barrels last week, their third weekly decline following an 18-week streak of builds.

Analyzing the data, a market watcher said in a report on Thursday fundamentals look soft. While all regions showed declines in gasoline stocks, demand was lower than last year while output is up on the week, though below a year ago, he said.

In the New York Harbor, traders pegged gasoline's weakness to the lack of strong demand for summer grade as sellers tried to get rid of the last of the winter grade barrels.

"I think in New York Harbor, no one is buying 2s(summer-grade) because they're still trying to run off the 4s (winter-grade)," said one trader.

In the news, Valero restarted a gasoline-making fluid catalytic cracker at its 195,000 barrel per day Memphis, Tennessee refinery after maintenance, a spokesman said on Thursday. [ID:nN03460251]

Exxon completed the restart of a 135,000 bpd crude unit at its 562,000 bpd refinery in Baytown, Texas on Monday, a spokesman said on Wednesday. [ID:nN02325160]

For NYMEX reports click [O/N]

For a list of refinery outages, click [REF/US]