Northwest European gasoline refining margins rose sharply for a second day on Thursday as crude prices slumped more than 3 percent to less than $70 a barrel, though rising inventories on both sides of the Atlantic weighed. Gasoline stocks in independent storage in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose by 11.7 percent in the week to Thursday, according to data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global, previously PJK International.

Stocks stood at 1.03 million tonnes, the data showed, and exports of the motor fuel were on transatlantic journeys and on their way to West Africa. US gasoline stocks rose by 917,000 barrels last week, Energy Information Administration data showed on Thursday. That compared with analyst expectations for a 1 million barrel drop in a Reuters poll.

One crude and one vacuum unit at Poland's 330,000 bpd Plock refinery have been shut for planned maintenance until the end of May, a spokeswoman for owner PKN Orlen said on Wednesday. Industry monitor Genscape on Wednesday said that the 69,500 bpd crude unit and the 51,000 bpd vacuum unit were shut late on Tuesday.

Copyright Reuters, 2019