Asia's naphtha crack hit a 2-1/2 month high of $94.38 a tonne on Thursday, boosted by persistent firm demand in the term and spot market, traders said. Taiwanese Formosa Petrochemical Corp, Asia's top naphtha importer, has awarded a tender to buy cargoes for second-half November delivery to Mailiao. Results could not be confirmed but traders estimated the price to be around a discount of $1 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis and the volumes bought to be around 100,000 tonnes.
This was sharply higher than the discount of $7 a tonne it paid on August 12 for 100,000 tonnes of naphtha for second-half September delivery. Separately, Korea Petrochemical Ind Co Ltd (KPIC) is looking to buy at least 270,000 tonnes of naphtha for 2016 through a term tender closing on October 19. This came in the same week when the Philippines' JG Summit Petrochemical Corp is also in the market seeking at least 360,000 tonnes of naphtha for 2016. In the last one to two months, Formosa, Malaysia-based Titan and South Korea's LG Chem, Lotte Chemical and YNCC have sealed term deals at discounts to lock in cargoes for mostly 12-month periods. India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for November 7-8 loading from Mumbai to Unipec at a premium of about $13 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis nearly four times the amount the seller received for a September cargo sold from the same port to Petro-Diamond. Counterpart Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha from Mumbai and another 25,000 tonnes from Kochi for co-loading on November 1-3 to Total at a premium of $18 to $19 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a FOB basis.