Asia's naphtha crack rebounded on Tuesday to reach an almost four-week high of $74.45 a tonne, supported by gasoline and steady demand from North Asian petrochemical makers. Taiwanese Formosa Petrochemical Corp, Asia's top naphtha importer, was seeking the fuel for first-half February delivery to Mailiao through a tender closing on December 28.
Formosa had on December 15 bought the light fuel for second-half January delivery to Mailiao at a discount of about $6.50 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis. That was sharply lower when compared to the discount of $1 a tonne it had paid on November 25 for up to 120,000 tonnes of naphtha scheduled for first-half January delivery.
Gasoline crack was near a two-month high of $11.46 a barrel on the back of tighter supplies due to global demand. India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) sold two cargoes of naphtha totalling up to 65,000 tonnes for January 8-10 loading from Kochi and Mumbai to Petro-Diamond at premiums of about $5 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.
Saudi Arabia's Sadara Basic Services, fully owned by Sadara Chemical Co, said it would start on Wednesday planned maintenance of a mixed-feed cracker at its parent company's petrochemical complex in Jubail. The shutdown of the facility is expected to last six weeks, with the company's three polyethylene trains also shut during the period as Sadara completes improvements to their reliability and scheduled maintenance.
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