Northwest European gasoline refining margins slipped on Friday to $21.28 a barrel, after a rise in Northwest European and U.S. stocks while crude oil headed for a weekly decline.

Oil dropped over 2% on Friday and was heading for a weekly decline, as a UK interest rate hike added to concern over economic growth that outweighed lower U.S. crude stocks and other signs of tighter supplies.

India’s crude oil imports in May rose 2% from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday, on sustained buying of discounted Russian fuel to cater to strong demand in the country.

Colonial Pipeline Co is allocating space for Cycle 38 on Line 1, its main gasoline line, the company said in a notice sent to shippers on Friday.

Gasoline stocks held in independent storage in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose by 3.3% in the week to Thursday to 1.31 million tonnes, due to higher imports, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.

Barge waiting times at ARA terminals were 5 to 6 days due to slower loadings as a result of lower availability of fuel in some terminals, Insights Global’s Bianca Stoiciu said.

U.S. gasoline stocks USOILG=ECI rose by 0.5 million barrels in the week to 221.4 million barrels, the Energy Information Administration said on Thursday. This compared with analysts’ expectations in a Reuters poll for a 0.1 million-barrel rise.

Northwest Europe (NWE) gasoline exports so far in June to the United States and West Africa (WAF) are recovering, as a drop in refinery utilisation in the U.S. and falling freight costs support the transatlantic arbitrage.
Source: Reuters Reporting by Noah Browning; editing by David Evans)