Europe Gasoline-dips in light trade to $600 a tonne

LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) - European gasoline prices dipped
in very light trade on Friday, tracking losses in crude and U.S.
gasoline futures.

Trade was light across oil contracts, with a long holiday
weekend in the United States limiting moves.

PRICES

* Premium unleaded 10ppm gasoline barges traded at six-week
lows of $595-$601 in early trade, but no deals were done in the
evening trading window. Prices closed at $600-$607 on Thursday.

The dealing was relatively thin, with about 6,000 tonnes
changing hands throughout the day.

* The drop in the Eurograde gasoline barge prices
outstripped a sell-off in crude oil, pushing its crack to dated
Brent BFO- to down by about 40 cents to $6.10 a barrel, the
weakest since early May.

* Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading down 65 cents at
$66.00 a barrel by 1611 GMT. [O/R]

* U.S. RBOB gasoline futures RBc1 were trading down more
than 2 cents at $1.7705 a gallon.

SWAPS

* Gasoline swaps also fell sharply. The balance of July was
$602 a tonne and the backwardation between July and August was
50 cents a tonne, narrowing from 75 cents on Thursday.
August/September was $3.25, compared with $3.75.

* Cracks weakened slightly to $5.25 a barrel from $5.30.

INVENTORIES

* The increase in U.S. gasoline inventories this week was
likely to limit arbitrage export opportunities from Europe,
traders said. [EIA/S]

* In Europe, the independent tanks at the ARA hub held
710,000 tonnes of gasoline, compared with 725,000 tonnes last
week and 771,000 tonnes a year earlier, a Dutch oil analyst said
on Thursday. [ARA/]

* Genscape, the U.S. based power industry monitor, said in
an interview this week it plans to launch a monitoring service
for the ARA hub before the end of this year. [ID:nL3557616]

REFINERIES

* Refinery restarts in Europe depressed overall oil product
prices.

* Spanish oil and gas firm Repsol (REP.MC) temporarily
restarted its 100,000 barrel-per-day Cartagena refinery on
Thursday after a shutdown since April due to poor margins, a
company spokesman said. [ID:nL2912551]

* That followed Total's Vlissingen refinery, which began to
start units after a planned maintenance since late May.

NAPHTHA

* Naphtha was bid at $565 a tonne cif NWE, down from $569 a
tonne on Thursday.
(Reporting by David Sheppard; Editing by Anthony Barker)