Europe Gasoline/Naphtha-Gasoline cracks down as crude jumps 3 pct

LONDON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Northwest European gasoline refining margins slid on Friday as crude prices rose by nearly 3 pct, but overseas demand limited losses.

* Latin American and U.S (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) . demand have been underpinning gasoline margins.

* This week alone, at least nine tankers have been provisionally booked to each load a 37,000 tonne clean cargo in Europe to go on transatlantic journeys, according to Reuters shipping data.

* ARA gasoline stocks fell by almost 12 percent to their lowest since early January in the week to Thursday, on the back of transatlantic and West African (Stuttgart: W25.SG - news) exports, according to Dutch consultancy PJK International.

* U.S. motorists used a record volume of gasoline in June as good weather and cheap fuel encouraged a strong start to the summer driving season.

* The volume of gasoline supplied to domestic consumers averaged 9.664 million barrels per day, an increase of 273,000 bpd compared with the same month in 2015.

* Naphtha supplies are set to tighten ahead of planned maintenance at Algeria's Skikda refinery later this month, traders said.

* Vitol has confirmed a booking for a tanker to load a 60,000 tonne naphtha cargo at Rabigh in Saudi Arabia on Sept 10-11 to come to northwest Europe, according to shipping reports.

* The Middle East to Europe naphtha arbitrage is rare, as the bulk of supplies from there usually end up in Asia Pacific.

GASOLINE

* No benchmark Eurobob gasoline traded during the afternoon trading session.

* Some 9,000 tonnes traded throughout the day at $444-$454 a tonne fob Amsterdam-Rotterdam, compared with $447-$460 a tonne during the previous session.

* A barge of premium unleaded gasoline traded at $465 a tonne fob ARA, up from $459-$460 a tonne the previous day.

* The September swap stood at around $436.50 a tonne at the close, up from $428.50 a tonne.

* Gasoline barge refining margins fell to $7.31 a barrel, from $7.84 a barrel on Thursday.

* Brent crude oil futures were up $1.38 at $46.83 a barrel by 1543 GMT.

* U.S. August RBOB gasoline futures were up 2.20 percent at 1.3004 a gallon.

* The U.S. gasoline crack (RB-CL1=R) was trading at $10.10 a barrel, down from $10.37 a barrel on Thursday.

NAPHTHA (NAF-C-NWE)

* BP sold a cargo to Glencore (Frankfurt: 8GC.F - news) at $375 a tonne cif NWE, up form trade at $365 a tonne the previous day.

(Reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar)