Dealers from the US Gulf Coast said there was a sharp rise in the cash gasoline differentials on Tuesday following outages in the refinery post Hurricane Gustav. Falling NYMEX benchmark futures is also one of the reasons according to them.
Monday saw the fury of Hurricane Gustav lashing on to the US Gulf of Mexico Coast. Some of the refineries may remain shut and inoperative at least for a day or two though there was no significant damage.
A total of fourteen oil refineries were closed and at least ten refineries scaled down their operations according to a release from the Energy Department.
Traders said there was a gain in the Harbor differentials due to their shift to the weaker benchmark month of October. There was a jump in the Group Three gasolines in the Midwest, tracking Gulf Values on Tuesday according to them.
Against an Oct. heating oil benchmark which was low and speculation that supply from the Gulf Coast may suffer due to Hurricane Gustav damages, differentials of the ultra low sulfur diesel gained in Chicago.
There was also a significant drop in the US crude futures. This follows the news that there was no significant damage to the energy infrastructure due to Hurricane Gustav.
At the New York Harbor, there was a rise towards the positive of the gasoline differentials with the market seeing a significant shift to October RBOB, NYMEX front month. While kerosene was up a penny at 19 cents, jet fuel showed a loss of half a cent settling at 16.50 cents in futures.
