SINGAPORE: Asia’s cash premiums for 10 ppm gasoil rose for a 11th consecutive session on Thursday supported by steady cargo demand in a tight market, while the front-month spread of the industrial fuel grade remained in steep backwardation.
Cash premiums for gasoil with 10 ppm sulphur content, which have climbed 66% in the last two weeks, were at a three-week high of $6.99 a barrel to Singapore quotes on Thursday. They were at premium of $6.94 per barrel on Wednesday.
The April/May time spread for 10 ppm gasoil traded at $8.80 a barrel on Thursday, 70 cents narrower from a day earlier.
Refining margins, or cracks, for 10 ppm gasoil slipped to $29.76 a barrel over Dubai crude during Asian trading hours, compared with $31.45 a barrel on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the jet fuel cracks fell 29 cents to $25.16 per barrel over Dubai crude on Thursday, weighed by worries that renewed lockdowns in China would dent the region’s demand recovery.
“Jet/kero demand will be the main victim of the current COVID-induced lockdowns (in China). We forecast a whopping counter-seasonal 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) drop in April and for demand to trend well below last year’s readings in H2-2022,” consultancy JBC Energy said in a note.
Singapore’s middle distillate inventories slid 7.2% this week to their lowest level in more than eight years, official data showed on Thursday.
The middle distillate stocks dropped by 545,000 barrels to 7.05 million barrels in the week to Wednesday, a level not seen since Dec. 11, 2013, when they touched a low of 6.8 million barrels, according to Enterprise Singapore data.
The onshore middle distillate stocks this week were 46.9% lower than the year-ago period, Reuters calculations showed.
The biggest net exports of automotive diesel from Singapore this week went to Myanmar at around 56,873 tonnes, while about 25,641 tonnes went to the United States, and 24,484 tonnes went to Vietnam, Enterprise Singapore data showed.
US distillate inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, rose by 1.4 million barrels in the week to March 25, versus expectations for a 1.5 million-barrel drop, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. One 500 ppm gasoil deal, no jet fuel trades. Oil prices plunged on Thursday on news that the United States was considering the release of up to 180 million barrels from its strategic petroleum reserve, the largest in the near 50-year history of the SPR.
Top oil consuming nations may find that one of their main tools to fight high global oil prices – the release of strategic stockpiles - will prove inadequate to soothe markets starved of Russian supply since its invasion of Ukraine.
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