Northwest European gasoline refining margins ended the week broadly flat at just over $25 a barrel amid lacklustre exports and rising stockpiles in the United States from the region.

Northwest Europe (NWE) gasoline exports in September gathered momentum after a slow start but volumes still lag behind August amid volatile transatlantic arbitrage economics due to outages leading to sporadic shipments to the United States, said LSEG analyst Raj Rajendran.

Exports to the US in September so far are penned at 628,000 metric tons (mt), double that scheduled a week ago, despite poor prompt arbitrage economics although were much better, which could explain the increased shipments as more nimble traders take advantage of the swings, he added.

Exports from NWE to West Africa in September got off to a slow start with 302,000 mt scheduled so far, well below the revised 964,000 mt in August.

Gasoline stocks held in independent storage in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub dipped by less than 1% in the week to Thursday, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.

U.S. gasoline stocks rose last week to 5.6 million barrels, the most since July 2022, to 220.3 million barrels, EIA government data showed, far exceeding expectations for a 200,000-barrel build.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Shadia Nasralla, Editing by Chris Reese)