SINGAPORE: Asia's naphtha crack rose to $20.85 a tonne on Monday but this was down by nearly 79% from a year ago due to heavy supplies this year.

Cracker maintenance and outages coupled with volatile crude prices and availability of alternative feedstock liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) have impacted naphtha fundamentals.

TENDERS: India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for end August loading from Mumbai to Glencore on Aug. 16 at premiums of $11 to $12 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis, industry sources said.

This was slightly down versus $12.50 a tonne premium ONGC had fetched recently for a cargo sold out of Mumbai to Marubeni.

India is now starting to sell cargoes for September loading, with IOC having offered a cargo for Sept. 12-14 loading from Chennai through a tender closing on Aug. 21.

GASOLINE: Asia's gasoline profit margin was down to a two-week low of $6.08 a barrel despite pockets of demand.

India's HPCL reissued a tender to buy a total of 38,000 tonnes of gasoline for Sept. 4-6 arrival at Mundra after amending the closing time for offers to be submitted.

Indian refiners such as BPCL, IOC and HPCL had been seeking gasoline recently to plug a supply shortfall caused by a wave of refinery turnarounds as the country prepares to use cleaner fuels from next year.

Copyright Reuters, 2019

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