Asia's gasoline crack fell for a fourth straight session on Monday to $9.41 a barrel, the lowest since May 16 as high oil prices has capped margins despite seasonal peak demand. Indonesia's Pertamina, Asia's top gasoline importer, has led the charge by buying actively during the Ramadan fasting month of May.
It recently had two tenders to buy a total of 1.73 million barrels of gasoline but ended up buying some but not all of the volumes. However it has since issued two separate tenders, looking for a total of 600,000 barrels of gasoline comprising 88-octane and 92-octane grades.
It would buy either on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis where sellers would deliver the cargoes to the ports of Medan, Tg. Uban, Bau-Bau, Kotabaru and Wayame between late June and first-half July or on the basis where it would lift the cargoes on its own from Singapore/Malaysia. Taiwan's Formosa on the other hand cancelled a tender to sell gasoline for late July lifting from Mailiao but the reasons behind the withdrawal of the tender were not clear. Taiwan's CPC was looking to buy heavy and full-range naphtha for July 5-26 arrival at Kaohsiung through a tender closing on May 30, with offers to stay valid until May 31.
This came shortly after Formosa bought 100,000 to 120,000 tonnes of open-specification naphtha last week for first-half July arrival at Mailiao at premiums of some $15 a tonne to its own price formula on a C&F basis.
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