Asia's naphtha crack edged up to a seven-month high of $111.65 a tonne on Friday, driven by recent brisk demand and low Brent crude prices which are on track for the biggest weekly loss in over two months. This week alone, South Korea and Taiwan have bought a total of over 140,000 tonnes of naphtha for second-half December delivery, with Formosa needing more of the fuel for December.
As for gasoline, the Asian crack value eased to $11.17 a barrel after it hit nearly a one month high in the previous session following concerns over supplies. Taiwan's CPC was unable to restart an 80,000 barrel-per-day residue fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) as planned this week due to a fire. The unit was shut at end-August for maintenance but the company has previously said that it has sufficient stocks to cover the production gaps.
In Indonesia, consumers were switching to a higher gasoline grade of 90-octane from the widely used 88-octane. This has caused 88-octane grade demand to fall by 13 percent to as low as 69,000 kilolitres per day this year. Indian Oil Corp plans to expand capacity at its naphtha cracker in Panipat in northern India to 1.2 million tonnes per year (tpy) by 2019 from the current capacity of about 850,000 tpy.
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