Unplanned work at Phillips 66’s Bayway, New Jersey, refinery and further sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector helped rally the oil complex Friday. NYMEX March RBOB settled 6.44 cents higher at $1.5729/gal after a fluid catalytic cracking unit at the 238,000 b/d Bayway refinery was taken offline Friday for unplanned maintenance (See story, 1717 GMT). NYMEX March ULSD settled sharply higher as well, up 4.87 cents at $2.0203/gal.
It is unclear when the unit will restart. A Phillips 66 spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment. The Bayway work, and planned turnarounds at PBF’s two Atlantic Coast refineries, comes amid a period of acute tightness for gasoline throughout the region. Weekly US Energy Information Administration data released this week showed Atlantic Coast gasoline stocks have fallen to just 69.5 million barrels, 0.5% above the five-year average.
This is a stark comparison to early October, when USAC gasoline stocks were more than 20% above the five-year average.
Spot New York Harbor differentials rose on the outage as well, with early indications showing RBOB barges heard up 60 points at March NYMEX RBOB minus 65 points/gal (See story, 1820 GMT). “I think that the PBF news has gotten everyone completely scared; that was all the news I heard yesterday,” one source said.
In the wider crude market, ICE April Brent settled $1.68 higher at $66.25/b and NYMEX March WTI settled $1.18 higher at $55.59/b. The US Department of the Treasury on Friday added Venezuelan Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo to its list of sanctioned individuals blocked from the US financial system, calling him the “illegitimate” president of PDVSA, which has been under US sanctions for three weeks (See story, 1904 GMT). It is unclear if the US sanctions will prevent Quevedo from attending OPEC’s April meeting in Vienna, which would have been his first meeting as president.