December 29, 2011 [Opis] - Magellan's El Paso terminal in west Texas is expecting a shipment of diesel to arrive late on Wednesday, replenishing empty diesel supplies at the racks for that terminal, a Magellan spokesman told OPIS. Magellan terminal at El Paso has not loaded any diesel fuel for the past six days, he added.
Marketers in El Paso noted that diesel supplies are tight at El Paso. Noble is a major products shipper on Magellan’s Longhorn pipeline, which delivers both gasoline and diesel from Houston to El Paso. However, Noble ran out of diesel at El Paso since Dec. 22, according to OPIS historical rack price database.
Noble could have been running low on diesel at El Paso for several days before the supply outage occurred on Dec. 22. Noble’s unbranded diesel price postings were higher than OPIS average in mid-December, indicating the likelihood of low supplies.
Meanwhile, Magellan said that it has adequate gasoline supplies at its El Paso terminal. It is noted that Noble’s gasoline prices at El Paso are significantly higher than other competitors this week, compared with early November.
On Tuesday, Noble’s unbranded E10 gasoline price at El Paso was 20.5cts/gal higher than Valero’s unbranded values. Fina and Western Refining were about 7.7-9.0cts higher than Valero.
