SINGAPORE: Asia’s gasoline margin rebounded on Monday as a jump in US prices, following a cyberattack that shut a major fuel pipeline over the weekend, offset lower demand in the US east coast due to the coronavirus pandemic.

US gasoline futures rose more than 3% to touch their highest in three years on Monday’s open on concerns over gasoline shortage in the US east coast after Colonial Pipeline shut its critical fuel network.

“We believe the outage is supportive for RBOB and heating oil futures in that it will, at a minimum, cause oil product imports to be diverted away from New York and increase shipments of oil products out of tanks in New York to ports in the US Southeast on US-flagged tankers and barges,” Energy Aspects analyst Virendra Chauhan said.

However, the consultancy expects the pipeline to restart in a few days and have limited impact on refineries in Louisiana and eastern Texas.

For naphtha, margins weakened for a third straight session as cracker operators sought cheaper liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) as feedstock.

South Korea’s KPIC and Hanwha Total Petrochemical issued tenders seeking to buy naphtha for second-half June delivery, traders said.

The tenders come after YNCC bought naphtha for second-half June delivery late last week, including at least one cargo with minimum paraffin content of 70% at $7.50 a tonne premium to Japan quotes on cost-and-freight basis, they said.

Separately, Kuwait Petroleum Corp and Indian refiner HPCL issued tenders to sell cargoes loading in late May and June.—Reuters

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