Asia's naphtha crack edged up 4 percent to reach a six-session high of $92.32 a tonne on Thursday, but the value continued to be traded at a discount to Brent oil due to weak fundamentals. High volumes of naphtha coming to Asia from the West and workable alternative liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices for Asia's top naphtha importer Formosa Petrochemical have weighed on sellers.
Demand also appeared to be slow, with limited tenders seen being issued by end users this week. China's CNOOC purchased naphtha for arrival between March 1 and March 8 at Huizhou at premiums of about $11 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis.
India's Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals, on the other hand, sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for Feb. 25-27 loading from New Mangalore to Gunvor at premiums of about $13 to $14 to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. The fresh premium was at least 15 percent lower compared with a cargo sold for Feb. 8-10 loading from the same port to Socar at premiums of about $16.50 a tonne.
Singapore's onshore light distillates eased 3.2 percent or 442,000 barrels to a three-week low of 13.55 million barrels in the week to Jan. 17, official data showed. The data showed around 23,000 tonnes of gasoline under 90-octane grade were shipped to Singapore from Norway. Norway had shipped similar volumes of similar grade to Singapore in the previous week.
India's Reliance Industries has raised its refinery capacity in the special economic zone (SEZ) at Jamnagar by 27 million tonnes (or 540,000 barrels per day (bpd)) to 35.2 million tonnes a year (704,000 bpd). Marathon Petroleum Corp shut a 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) gasoline-making unit at its Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, after an attempt to restart the unit failed.
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