Asia’s naphtha crack, arbitrage spread falls on Suez Canal progress

SINGAPORE, March 29 (Reuters) - Asia’s naphtha crack and arbitrage spread fell on Monday on reports that the massive container ship blocking Egypt’s Suez Canal for nearly a week had been partially refloated, easing concerns of supply disruptions to Asia.

The front-month naphtha arbitrage spread, the price difference between naphtha cargoes in Asia and Northwest Europe, fell to $15.25 a tonne on Monday, down from a more than four-month high of $20 a tonne touched on Friday, Refinitiv data in Eikon showed.

The naphtha crack dropped to a near two-week low of $97.55 a tonne on Monday, down from a near two-week high of $108.90 per tonne on Friday.

As Asia is structurally short, it relies on naphtha from the West including Europe, the Mediterranean and the United States to plug supply shortages.

Around 20% of Asia’s naphtha is supplied by the Mediterranean and Black Sea via the Suez Canal, according to energy consultancy FGE.

By contrast, Asia’s gasoline crack climbed to a two-week high of $6.19 a barrel on Monday, lifted by signs of tightening inventories amid regional refiner turnarounds and a refinery outage in Indonesia that could boost near term exports to the country.

The gasoline crack had risen steadily over the past three sessions and is up from $5.83 a barrel a week ago.

Light distillate inventories in the Singapore hub fell 6% to an eight-week low of 14.647 million barrels in the week to March 24.

Indonesian state oil company Pertamina said on Monday it hoped to restore operations at its Balongan oil refinery in West Java in four or five days, as firefighters worked to extinguish a massive blaze that broke out overnight, injuring five people.

Pertamina expects operations can be restored in four to five days, Pertamina director Mulyono told the media briefing.

Pertamina director Mulyono said the company had “secure” levels of fuel stocks to supply Indonesia, including for the upcoming Islamic holidays of Eid Al-Fitr.

Pertamina will use fuel from its other refineries in Cilacap and Tuban to help provide supplies to Jakarta while Balongan is shut, Mulyono added.