Atlantic Basin refinery margins are rising back toward record levels set earlier this year, spurred higher by refinery outages and French refinery strikes, an analysis from S&P Global Commodity Insights showed Oct. 17. “Ongoing strikes at three [French] refineries have increased the country’s call on product imports at a time of refinery turnarounds in Europe, boosting prices,” according to S&P Global analysts Lenny Rodriguez and Rebekah Foley. “This situation led to ARA (Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp) ULSD cracks to surge to $80/b on Oct. 13, with jet and gasoline cracks at $52/b and $36/b, respectively,” they wrote in an Oct. 17 research note. These higher cracks pulled up margins. Northwest Europe cracking margins for Dated Brent averaged $23.11/b for the week ended Oct. 14, up from the $19.77/b the week earlier, S&P Global margin data showed. However, gains are limited by persistent high natural gas prices which are weighing on margins by […]