Europe Gasoline/Naphtha-Naphtha crack underpinned by tighter supplies
LONDON, Sept 27 (Reuters) - The naphtha crack fell on Tuesday but remained near the 5-month high reached in recent days underpinned by lower supplies due to European refinery maintenance, the recent pipeline outage in the United States and rising Asian demand.
* "The return of Asian crackers from maintenance coincided with tightness in the West of Suez (LSE: 0NRV.L - news) , lifting Singapore cracks in recent weeks...The U.S. colonial products pipeline outage (now resolved) added to light distillate tightness in the Atlantic (Shanghai: 600558.SS - news) Basin," FG Energy wrote in a note.
* China's teapot refineries could slow down crude imports in H2 2016 on logistics constraints and high oil inventories, industry analyst says at Tank Storage Asia conference.
* Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) on Tuesday slashed its fourth quarter 2016 oil price forecast by $7 per barrel, citing a mounting crude surplus that could outweigh any short-term price support from a potential deal among top producers to limit output.
* Low water levels along the Rhine River continued to limit barge loadings.
GASOLINE
* One barge of benchmark Eurobob traded at $458 a tonne fob ARA. Gunvor sold to Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) . The level was down from offers at $477 a tonne seen on Monday.
* Some 10,000 tonnes of winter gasoline traded earlier in the day at $460-$474 a tonne ARA, up from $465 a tonne on Monday. Shell and Gunvor sold to Finco and Varo. Shell also bought some from Gunvor.
* There were no trades for barge of premium unleaded but an offer surfaced at $476 a tonne fob ARA.
* The October swap stood at $457.50 a tonne at the close, down from $472 a tonne.
* Gasoline barge refining margins edged higher to $9.5 a barrel from $9.3 a barrel on Monday.
* Brent crude oil futures were down $1.56 a barrel at $45.79 by 1554 GMT.
* U.S. October RBOB gasoline futures were down 1.95 percent at 1.3750 a gallon.
* The U.S. gasoline crack (RB-CL1=R) was trading at $12.49 a barrel, down slightly from $12.53 a barrel.
NAPHTHA (NAF-C-NWE)
* Shell sold a cargo to BASF at $394 a tonne cif Northwest Europe for Oct (HKSE: 3366-OL.HK - news) . 17-21 delivery.
(Reporting by Julia Payne, editing by Ahmad Ghaddar)