Asia's naphtha price was around a two-week low on Monday but cracks hovered at a 15-month low and timespreads fell to their lowest in about three months as sentiment deteriorated further due to sluggish petrochemical demand. China's manufacturing sector picked up moderately in October, snapping a three-month contraction and underscoring the resilience of the world's second-largest economy and top energy consumer, according to HSBC's China Flash Purchasing Managers' Index.
While this fuelled investors' optimism in crude futures trading, it failed to do the same for the naphtha market due to fears of more units cutting runs because of oversupply of petrochemicals, which are mainly from naphtha.