Article: Healthy Louisiana Light Sweet crude price pushes Gulf Coast refinery margins lower.(petroleum)

Gulf Coast refiners running Louisiana Light Sweet (LLS) crude saw their margins soften late last week as prices for the grade firmed on Friday to nearly 95 cents over West Texas Intermediate (WTI) at Cushing, Okla.

But cold weather and a mere trickle of heating oil imports have kept returns strong in both Chicago and the New York Harbor area, traders said.

LLS, which recently has been at an average 85 cents premium to WTI, is producing a 3-2-1 refining margin -- based on 3 bbl of crude producing 2 bbl of gasoline and 1 bbl of distillate -- of $2/bbl in the Gulf Coast, one East Coast refiner and marketer said.

That is down about 20 cents from a week ...

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