European refiners are sending large volumes of gasoline to the United States after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, closing refineries and causing shortages, ship brokers said on Thursday.
Mississippi and Louisiana refinery closures have triggered a wave of exports, as oil refiners and traders booked 20 ships to carry European gasoline to U.S. shores, where suppliers are crying out for any spare volumes.
"The questions you receive -- 'Do you have anything that looks like gasoline available?' -- indicate an extreme market," one trader at a European refining company said.
Shipping brokers said 10 cargoes were booked on Tuesday with the remainder on Wednesday and Thursday. Brokers were not immediately able to say how much volume has been booked to load, but they said the flotilla was a mix of 37,000-, 60,000- and smaller 30,000-tonne loads.
Normally Europe ships one or two cargoes to the United States per day.
"There's an enormous amount that's been fixed," one senior ship broker said, adding that freight rates were soaring as ships were in shorter and shorter supply.
In reaction to the crisis, amid rocketing gasoline prices in the aftermath of the storm, President George W. Bush warned against gasoline price-gouging at the pump.
Most of the relief will arrive in the United States only in October from ports in northern Europe and the Mediterranean, where the ships are due to take on their cargoes in the second half of September.
The storm disruption to refineries and other oil installations in the U.S. Gulf caused September NYMEX gasoline futures to hit a front month record of $2.925 on Wednesday.
By 1146 GMT on Thursday the October front month was trading 12.62 cents a gallon up at $2.3815.
The U.S. Department of Energy said on Wednesday that at least nine refineries had been shut by the hurricane. It had also reduced refinery runs at several other facilities.
Gasoline prices in Europe continued to soar, hitting a fresh record of $855 a tonne on Thursday as exporters gathered up cargoes for export to the United States. That is the equivalent of more than $100 per barrel, or $2.33 a gallon.
Freight for standard 37,000-tonne transatlantic shipments, a barometer of demand, have jumped at least 70 Worldscale points to W330 on Wednesday. Brokers said on Thursday there was an unconfirmed trade at W400.
"This is just the beginning of a very hectic gasoline and energy market as a whole. It certainly isn't just a two-day event. The draw down on gasoline stocks in the U.S. isn't helping either," one senior Nordic broker said.
Even before the storm, gasoline stocks were falling as the summer vacation season wound down in the United States and gasoline consumption was expected to fall from its peaks.
U.S. government data released on Wednesday showed 500,000 barrels were drawn from U.S. gasoline stocks in the week before Katrina hit.
