SINGAPORE: The Asian gasoil margin firmed on Wednesday as spot demand emerged from Vietnam and the Philippines, though supply is still adequate to meet the additional demand, traders said.
The February gasoil crack climbed 24 cents to $19.73 a barrel above Dubai crude, Reuters data showed.
Vietnam's PV Oil sought a small parcel of high sulphur gasoil for February, adding to an existing spot enquiry from Saigon Petro, also for a February parcel.
The country's largest importer Petrolimex was absent from the spot market and has yet to issue its yearly import tender for 2013, industry sources said.
The Philippines' Petron also sought a gasoil cargo for early February delivery.
In Taiwan, Formosa Petrochemicals Corp sold at least two 10 ppm sulphur diesel cargoes of 300,000 barrels each for loading in February to Glencore and Mitsui at a premium of about 60 cents a barrel above Singapore quotes, traders said.
This is consistent with levels for a previous tender, they added.
The company also sold a 500 ppm sulphur gasoil cargo to Winson Oil at a discount of about 75 cents a barrel, they added.
It might have sold more than one cargo, though this could not immediately be verified.
The differentials for the grade has weakened by about 15 cents a barrel from Formosa's previous cargo, traders said.
Formosa separately offered a jet fuel cargo, for which traders expect premiums to be stronger on firm demand from Japan due to heating fuel demand.
Demand from Hawaii could also grow as Tesoro Corp announced that it will permanently shut the 93,500 barrels-per-day (bpd) Kapolei, Hawaii refinery in April and convert it to an import, storage and distribution terminal.
"It's still very early to speculate but Hawaii's oil product imports will likely go up, though not by that much, as its demand is still quite small," said a Singapore-based trader.
"Barrels will likely be moved from the US West Coast first, before Asian barrels start being pulled in."
Traders expect an extra 60,000 to 90,000 tonnes of jet fuel to be shipped from Asia to Hawaii from the current 60,000 tonnes a month when the refinery shuts.
Center>Copyright Reuters, 2013
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