Unipec offered the best price among six companies that competed for the tender, a BPC official said on Monday, as the tender opened on Feb. 18 with validity up to Feb. 26.
This will be the highest selling price since August when state-owned BPC sold a similar cargo at a premium of $1.32 a barrel to Singapore spot quotes.
The Asian naphtha crack rebounded from a three-week low to reach a one-week high of $97.98 a tonne due to a supply crunch caused by few cargoes sailing to the East from Europe and the United States, traders said on Monday.
BPC last sold a cargo of the same size to Socar Trading at discounts of $3.29 a barrel to Singapore quotes for Nov. 27-29 loading, the lowest price in many years. Apart from exporting, BPC sells naphtha domestically to privately-owned Super Petrochemical.
BPC is buying 700,000 tonnes of Murban crude from Abu Dhabi National Oil Co and another 600,000 tonnes of Arab Light from Saudi Aramco this year for its sole Eastern Refinery in Chittagong.