Europe Gasoline/Naphtha-Cracks fall, arb to U.S. supports

LONDON, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Northwest European gasoline refining margins fell on Monday after hitting a three-month high last week, but cracks were still supported by busy spot cargo bookings to the U.S.

* Higher prices on the back of a pipeline outage in the United States have spurred several bookings from Europe to go the East Coast in the past week.

* Colonial Pipeline Co said on Saturday it resumed repairing a leak on a key U.S. gasoline line on Friday afternoon, but pump prices continued to rise in the southeast as several states took emergency action to get fuel to filling stations more easily.

* Additionally, the "front of the curve is hugely backwardated, so anyone with product in tank needs to shift it," a gasoline trader said.

* A dollar shortage in Nigeria is making the arbitrage from Europe difficult to work, traders said.

* Europe has been soaking naphtha from the east as weak Asian prices open up the rare arbitrage.

* At least one medium-range size tanker and two long-range 1 (LR1) vessels carrying naphtha of Middle Eastern and Indian origin totalling over 140,000 tonnes had already landed in Northwest Europe, traders said.

* Upcoming refinery shutdowns in Europe and the Middle East could dent supplies and support light-end margins.

* Saudi Aramco has scheduled maintenance at its refinery in Yanbu and its largest refinery in Ras Tanura in November and December, sources said.

* Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Co (Yasref), is expected to shut its 400,000 barrel-per-day refinery complex for 10-15 days of maintenance in November.

* Saudi Aramco plans to carry out maintenance at the Ras Tanura refinery in December for 20-25 days, which may involve only the 325,000-bpd crude distillation unit (CDU), the sources added.

GASOLINE

* Vitol sold two barges of benchmark Eurobob barges to Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) at $491 a tonne fob ARA.

* Some 8,000 tonnes traded earlier in the day at $489 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam, compared with $483-$486 a tonne on Friday. Statoil (LSE: 0M2Z.L - news) , NIC (NasdaqGS: EGOV - news) and BP sold to Shell and Rolympus.

* Rolympus sold to Total (LSE: 524773.L - news) two barges of premium unleaded gasoline at $504 a tonne fob ARA, up from $502 a tonne the previous session.

* The October swap stood at around $468 a tonne at the close, up from $465 a tonne.

* Gasoline barge refining margins declined to $12.29 from $12.92 a barrel on Friday.

* Brent crude oil futures were up $1 at $46.77 a barrel by 1539 GMT.

* U.S. October RBOB gasoline futures were down 0.47 percent at 1.4547 a gallon.

* The U.S. gasoline crack (RB-CL1=R) was trading at $17.04 a barrel, down from $18.91 a barrel.

NAPHTHA (NAF-C-NWE)

* BP sold to Statoil a cif NWE cargo at $395.50 tonne.

(Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar)