March 29 Reuters Australia39;s gasoline and diesel imports are expected to rise 2 to hit a record for a second straight year due to a drop in domestic production and a postCOVID economic recovery boosting fuel demand, traders, analysts and an industry source said.

In the near term, gasoline imports are set to jump due to a roughly fiveweek outage at a gasolinemaking unit at Ampol39;s Lytton refinery in Brisbane followed by maintenance work in May at Viva Energy39;s refinery near Melbourne.

This presents an opportunity for sellers in Singapore and South Korea, whose supplies make up around half of total Australian gasoil imports and nearly 80 of gasoline purchases, data from Wood Mackenzie and Rystad Energy showed.

Australia39;s growing appetite for gasoline imports, following the closure of two refineries in 2021, is likely to help boost Asian refining margins, which have already more than doubled so far this year.

Imports of gasoline and diesel hit historical highs of about 166,000 barrels per day bpd and around 480,000 bpd respectively last year, Australian government data showed.

Ampol39;s fluidised catalytic cracking unit FCC outage is likely to boost gasoline imports by 3,000 bpd on average for the year, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Ampol Ltd said on Monday it expected the unit would be out of service until early May.

The loss of the Lytton FCC reduces the supply of gasoline components by approximately 18,000 bpd, so imports will be…