Refined Products Are Seeing Modest Gains To Start Tuesday’s Session

Refined products are seeing modest gains to start Tuesday’s session after a Monday pullback snapped a 6-day winning streak for ULSD futures.

Marathon’s Carson refinery in the LA area reported an unplanned flaring event early Monday morning to state regulators, with subsequent reports from Energy News Today suggesting the plant had to shut down a reformer unit due to the upset. That news didn’t stop LA gasoline basis values from falling sharply on the day however, with prompt premiums falling by 17 cents after last week’s big rally that led to a surge in news reports about $5 gasoline and the potential harm to the economy it could cause.

The price to lease space on Colonial’s main gasoline line continues to surge this week, with line 1 values trading north of 8 cents/gallon as Gulf Coast refiners are having to pay up to move their excess product north. New York Harbor basis values remain at larger-than-normal discounts around 33-35 cents below futures, which is setting up an interesting race to the RVP transition finish line over the next few weeks.

Now that the eclipse and basketball tournaments are in the rearview, focus will soon turn back to the weekly and monthly stats. The EIA’s monthly energy outlook will be released later this morning, followed by OPEC’s monthly report Thursday, and the IEA’s monthly report on Friday.

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