Asia's naphtha crack returned to the positive zone, after being at discounted levels since the value turned negative last week for the first time in over a decade.
Open-specification naphtha crack was at a premium of $3.45 a tonne to Brent crude as concerns over war risks in the Middle East and expectations of improved demand in South Korea as crackers resume operations following outages lifted the value.
The US military released a video late on Thursday showing Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) removing an unexploded mine from the side of a Japanese-owned oil tanker.
Two tankers, of which one involved a ship carrying 75,000 tonnes of Ruwais origin naphtha worth more than $30 million bound for Taiwan's CPC, suffered explosions on Thursday.
Like with crude, naphtha buyers rely on heavyweights ADNOC, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait for the petrochemical feedstock as Middle East supplies at least 2 million tonnes of naphtha a month to the Asia, which is structurally short of the fuel.
South Korea and Japan alone import more than 2 million tonnes of naphtha a month on the average.
In May for instance, Japan imported nearly 1.24 million tonnes of naphtha, making that its highest monthly import for the fuel since December last year.
But industry sources said the impact of the attacks on the ships was cushioned by current surplus naphtha supply, which help capped spot prices.
India's ONGC sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for June 20-21 loading from Mumbai to Japan's Marubeni at premiums close to $6 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.
This was the lowest premium it has fetched for a naphtha cargo sold out of Mumbai since December.
ONGC occasionally sells naphtha from Hazira, depending on domestic demand.
ONGC's subsidiary MRPL has an outstanding to sell a naphtha cargo on late Friday.
India's BPCL cancelled a purchase tender for a June cargo for the second time but the reasons behind were not clear.
It has cancelled the tender to buy a cargo for June 20-24 arrival at Mumbai.
Taiwan's Formosa has sold two cargoes of gasoline for July loading at premiums around the 90 cents a barrel to Singapore quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.
Gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose by 13.1% to a four-month high of 1.22 million tonnes, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.
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