Diesel and gasoil inventories in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp trading hub increased 2.5% week on week to 2.679 million mt as of July 8, Insights Global data released July 9 showed.

ARA diesel and gasoil stocks are now 4.7% lower than at the same time last year.

"There is little interest in 10 ppm and for gasoil there is zero," a trader said.

Demand for 50ppm gasoil and 0.1% gasoil dried up in June after a flurry of buying in the spring because of a low price and a steep contango. Stocks of heating oil were reported as full in Germany and France. Meanwhile, demand for 10ppm diesel from ARA into Germany was seen as lackluster by market participants.

“There is slightly better demand for diesel [in Germany] but not that much and there is very low demand for heating oil, nobody is buying in ARA,” a second trader said, adding his company had a lot of product in stock. “Diesel consumption is better now, it is slowly back to normal…a lot of people are still working from home but most people have gone back to the office,” he added.

However, demand for 10 ppm diesel into France was reported as healthy due to a strong recovery in road fuel consumption after the lifting of most travel restrictions within Europe and the resumption of most business activity there.

“Over June, diesel demand [in France] almost jumped back to normal levels, but it is still below normal levels,” a third trader said, adding that preliminary reports showed that diesel consumption at the pump was only down 5% year on year in June. “Regarding the transport of goods, it picked up significantly but such a sharp recovery was to be expected after the huge slowdown due to the lockdown,” he also said.

According to a fourth trader, the strengthening of the prompt structure of the diesel paper market could have an impact. "Since the contango structure flattened, there might be more [diesel] coming out of storage,” he said. "Heating oil demand is non-existent," he added.

In the paper market, the prompt structure of the ICE low-sulfur gasoil futures strengthened on July 8 with the July/August ICE LSGO contango narrowing 50 cents on the day to $2/mt, while the August/September contango was steady at $2.50/mt. At 1500 GMT on July 9, July/August was trading in a $2.25/mt contango, while August/September was trading in a $2.50/mt contango.

Across the Atlantic, US commercial stocks of ULSD -- with a maximum 15 ppm of sulfur -- rose by 3.6 million barrels to 164.2 million barrels for the week ended July 3, according to data on July 8 from the US Energy Information Administration. On the US Gulf Coast, ULSD inventories increased by 2.4 million barrels to 52.4 million barrel, representing a fresh 16-year high, EIA data also showed.