US Cash Products-Gasoline diffs up despite supply build

NEW YORK, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Cash gasoline rose across the hubs despite a big build in national stockpiles, with the New York Harbor seeing a rise in demand for physical barrels, traders said on Thursday.

"There's a lot of demand, everyone's refilling after supply disruptions due to the hurricanes; the stock build was primarily in the Gulf Coast," said one gasoline trader in the NY Harbor referring to recent hurricanes Ike and Gustav.

National gasoline supplies logged a bigger-than-forecast rise of 7.2 million barrels to 186.8 million last week, the government said Wednesday, with all regions showing gains.

However, pundits argue that total motor fuel inventories remain only a little above 40-year lows reached after several consecutive weeks of declines when they were depleted due to Gulf Coast refinery shutdowns from the hurricanes.

In PADD 1, East Coast region, conventional gasoline supplies stood at 18.9 million barrels, well below year-ago levels of 26.9 million while declines historically in most other hubs were less pronounced.

Valero said a small fire occurred during the restart of the fluid catalytic cracker at its 130,000 barrel-per-day Houston refinery Thursday, but the gasoline-making unit's return from Hurricane Ike was proceeding as planned. [ID:nN09377798]

A fire which occurred on restart of the 56,000-bpd FCC unit at Pasadena Refining's refinery in Texas is expected to keep the unit out of service for two weeks. [ID:nN08534139]

NYMEX crude and oil products futures were in the red.

For a list of refinery outages/restarts, click [REF/US]

U.S. GULF COAST <0#P-USG>

Prompt cycle 58 M4 winter grade gasoline gained a penny to trade at 1.00 cent under the November RBOB screen.

Newly prompt cycle 58 61 grade ultra-low sulfur diesel continued to drop, falling about 2 cents to 5.50/6.50 over the November heating oil screen, down from Wednesday's level of 7.75 cents over.

Scheduling cycle 58 heating oil traded twice at 5.25 cents under the screen.

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Gasoline regained strength amid a rise in demand.

RBOB F4 grade was said done at 3 cents over futures for barrels by Oct 20th, up three quarters of a cent from late Wednesday and a penny and a half from midday Wednesday, traders said, adding there was little discussion on any month tonnage.

Regular M4 prompt was valued at around 9 cents over the November print, holding late day gains from Wednesday but up from about 5 cents over midday Wednesday. Any month barrels were valued at about 5.50 cents over.

Jet fuel was offered at 30 cents over for a second day running after some trading was effected at 27 cents over late Wednesday, traders said.

Heating oil offers were flat at November print minus 2 cents under and ULSD diesel at 18 cents over and low sulfur at 7 cents over were also little changed.

The market is "very quiet, better offered," a trader said.

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Group Three gasoline gained a penny for a second day running, garnering strength from a slightly stronger Gulf.

Prompt N grade was seen at 3.50/4.00 cents over the November screen.

In Chicago, prompt second cycle barrels were slightly stronger as well, talked at 17.50/18.00 cents over the screen with premium holding a 12.00 cent premium over regular unleaded.

Third cycle values were seen at 11.00/13.00 over futures.

Prompt X grade ultra-low sulfur diesel in Group Three fell to levels of 15.50/17.00 cents over after dipping as low as 14.00 cents over before buying returned to push values higher.

In Chicago, prompt second cycle barrels were seen at 13.50/15.00 cents over the screen with third cycle barrels done at 12.00 cents over.

(Reporting by Haitham Haddadin and Janet McGurty)