SINGAPORE: Asia's naphtha stayed firm on tight supplies as reflected in this week's spot deals where premiums were higher compared with two weeks ago.
- Premiums of spot cargoes sold to Taiwan and sold out of India were at their highest in over three years.
- Formosa Petrochemical Corp, Asia's top naphtha importer, for instance had to pay a premium of some $15 a tonne to its own price formula on a cost-and-freight late this week for the fuel, making this the highest premium it had paid since May 2014.
- Traders said buying interest for naphtha has been strong and that the seasonal demand for gasoline worsened the tight supplies as the former is also used as a blending component for petrol.
TENDERS: India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) has offered 30,000 tonnes of naphtha for June 15-17 loading from Mumbai through a tender closing on May 30.
- This came shortly after it sold a cargo at about $36 a tonne premium to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB), making this the highest premium fetched for a Kochi naphtha cargo since 2014.
- Egypt, which does not regularly offer spot cargoes from Suez, emerged with a tender to sell 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for June 17-19 loading.
GASOLINE: Asia's gasoline crack was at a four-session low of $9.59 a barrel but this was 40.6 percent higher than the value from a month ago.
- Indonesia's Pertamina, also the top importer of gasoline in Asia, issued yet another spot tender seeking 88-octane grade gasoline.
- This time it was looking to buy two 200,000-barrels cargoes for second-half June loading from Singapore/Malaysia.
- The tender closes on May 28, with offers to stay valid until May 31.
- It had previously sought some 1.73 million barrels of gasoline through two spot tenders and had bought some but not all of the volumes, traders said.
- Over in Europe, gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub were seen lower just like in Singapore.
- ARA gasoline inventories fell nearly 8 pct in the week to Thursday to 998,000 tonnes, lowest since Jan. 4 this year, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International showed.
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