LONDON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Gasoline refining margins innorthwest Europe rose sharply as oil futures sunk and inreaction to perceived tightening of U.S. supplies due tohurricane fears and an outage at a major refinery, which couldmean demand for more European product.
* Further gains were tempered by U.S. data showing a smallgain in gasoline stocks versus an expected large draw. Asignificant gain in crude stocks weighed heavily on oil futures.
* U.S. Gulf Coast cash gasoline markets surged in earlytrading on Wednesday on reports that a tropical storm in theCaribbean will reach hurricane strength before it hits thecountry's largest energy producing region, traders said.
* Repairs on a fluidic catalytic converter unit atExxonMobil's 560,500 barrel per day Baytown refinery werecontinuing on Wednesday, a spokeswoman said. The 90,000 bpd unitwas shut on Aug. 16.
* The gasoline and naphtha glut that has plagued refinersfor most of the year should start to ease with the upcomingmaintenance season.
* European refinery turnarounds are set to peak at around1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in mid-September, less thanhalf the volume that was out during the same period last yearbut globally, the turnaround outage will be larger at roughly 7percent of global refinery throughput .
* Naphtha supplies have tightened owing to lower Russianexports but that was balanced out by lower Asian demand, onetrader said.
GASOLINE
* There were no Eurobob trades during the afternoon tradingwindow. There was a bid at $484 a tonne fob ARA but no offers.
* Some 16,000 tonnes traded in the morning at $480-$486 atonne fob ARA, up from $474-$475 a tonne fob ARA on Tuesday.Gunvor, Total and Statoil sold to Rolympus, Varo, ShellTrafigura and BP.
* There were two trades of premium unleaded gasoline bargesboth at $491 a tonne fob ARA, lower than discussions of$495-$497 a tonne fob ARA the previous day.
* The September swap stood at around $484 a tonne at theclose, up from $489.50 a tonne.
* Gasoline barge refining margins rose over $2 to theirhighest level since Aug. 8 at 10.08 a barrel, up from $7.73 abarrel around the same time on Tuesday.
* Brent crude oil futures were down $1.13 cents at$48.83 a barrel by 1547 GMT.
* U.S. August RBOB gasoline futures were down 0.61percent at 1.4897 a gallon.
* The U.S. gasoline crack
NAPHTHA
* There was no activity in the window. In the previoussession, a cargo traded at $397 a tonne cif NWE. (Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Adrian Croft; For ARAoilstock data click on ; For European oilstockdata click on ; For swaps prices doubleclick on :; Graphic: Global refined oil stocks (http://tmsnrt.rs/2br1O3U))