Gasoline fundamentals point to weak driving season
Global gasoline exports are holding near last year’s seasonal levels, but early-year demand indicators point to continued weakness as the summer driving season approaches. Ample barrels are chasing limited pockets of demand, forcing cargoes into storage or secondary markets.
Global supply stays flat year-on-year
Global seaborne gasoline loadings this spring are in line with last year’s already high seasonal volumes. Pacific Basin liftings ran 21% above the 2016-19 seasonal average in March, with higher export capacity offsetting softer Atlantic Basin flows. In the Atlantic Basin, Europe’s early pull for summer-spec gasoline has firmed domestic margins (Argus), kept more refined barrels for local consumption, and narrowed transatlantic arb economics amid a weaker demand outlook in the west of the Atlantic.
Gasoline demand indicator signals soft appetite
For an outlook on gasoline margins, it is demand fundamentals that once again take precedent. Tracking the world’s top-150 gasoline import ports (Top 1-100, 101-150) as a proxy for demand, a clear downward trend since the beginning of 2025 can be seen. Year-to-date imports are down by 3% compared with the same period last year, with the Atlantic Basin accounting for a majority of the decline. This pattern follows an already sluggish 2024, suggesting that even with ample supply, buyers are reactionary to prompt demand rather than building summer stocks in advance.
Caribbean absorbs excess gasoline supply
Imports into PADD 1 (excl. Florida) are relatively weak for the time of the year, 6% lower y-o-y in April despite declining stocks (EIA). With fewer barrels landing in one of Atlantic Basin’s primary markets, exporters have shifted flows to Caribbean storage. Caribbean imports have already reached seasonal highs on two occasions in 2025, with April levels standing 13% higher than last year. The Bahamas and U.S. Virgin Islands lead these inflows into storage tanks, likely giving PADD 1 buyers confidence in their ability to promptly fill gaps if summer driving demand exceeds expectations.
California taps long-haul barrels during outages
The surplus in Atlantic Basin barrels went beyond storage in the Caribbean, with long-haul shipments transiting through the Panama Canal to plug PADD 5’s refinery outages. PADD 5 refinery outages caused runs to dip to 72% in March (EIA). Vortexa data shows that in March and April, 22 cargoes from Northwest Europe and India West Coast discharged in PADD 5, a dataset high in any two-month period. This indicates that exporters are now eyeing increasingly distant markets to clear their surplus supplies.
New refineries add more supply-side pressure
Nigeria’s Dangote refinery (650kbd) has already cut Europe’s exports to West Africa, though its upcoming seasonal maintenance may offer temporary relief to margins ahead of driving season. Mexico’s Dos Bocas refinery (340kbd) recently loaded its first diesel cargo, an increase in runs is yet to be observed, leaving the planned 170kbd of gasoline production off the balance for now.
Looking forward, robust summer driving will be needed to sustain the recent crack-spread rally. If this fails to materialise, storage hubs will likely emerge as the clear winners.
