OREANDA-NEWS.  Stronger interest from buyers in Latin America is helping to absorb excess gasoline in Europe, at a time of weaker US interest.

Buyers in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico have provisionally booked as much as 299,000t of spot European gasoline for June loading, compared with 111,000t in May and 208,000t in June 2015.

spot European gasoline has been booked for Argentinian discharge for the first time in more than two years. Trading firm Trafigura has booked the Medium Range (MR) tanker Torm Caroline to load 40,000t of unleaded gasoline on 11 June.

Mexican interest in European gasoline has also firmed. BP, US-based refiner Valero and Mexico's state-owned PMI have all booked MR tankers to load gasoline in both the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) region and at Sines, Portgual, for discharge along Mexico's east coast. PMI has booked two tankers for June loading, its first European gasoline spot tanker bookings since November 2015.

Brazil's state-controlled Petrobras, a regular buyer of European gasoline, has booked around 462,000t so far in 2016 according to spot tanker fixtures.

Demand for gasoline in Europe is lacklustre and the gradual resumption of normal operations at French refineries — following industrial action in late May and early June — is expected to boost prompt supplies at a time of rising independent inventories in the ARA region.