Asia’s gasoline and naphtha crack rises

SINGAPORE: Asia’s gasoline and naphtha cracks both strengthened on Tuesday.

The gasoline crack rose for a second straight session to $4.37 per barrel, the highest since Feb. 8, from $3.31 per barrel a day earlier.

The naphtha crack rebounded to $92.15 per tonne, compared with $90.2 per tonne in the previous session.

Total naphtha flows into Asia for February have been notionally assessed at 5.5-5.6 million metric tonnes (mt), edging down by 6% from January’s revised total of 5.9-6 million mt and also lower compared with 2020’s monthly average of 5.8 million mt, assessments by Refinitiv Oil Research showed.

One gasoline deal. No naphtha deal.

Fuji Oil Co Ltd has restarted the 143,000-barrel-per-day crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Sodegaura oil refinery after an earthquake on Saturday forced it to shut down, a spokesman for the Japanese refiner said on Tuesday. Japanese oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co has shut a 190,000-barrel-per-day crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Chiba refinery, east of Tokyo, shortly after it was hit by an earthquake, a company spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Japan’s naphtha imports for the petrochemical sector fell 7 percent in January from the same month a year earlier, government figures showed on Tuesday.