Asia's naphtha crack edged higher on Thursday to about $128.80 per tonne, holding near an 8-1/2 month high on strong demand and tighter supply from India and the Middle East. Shell said on Thursday is had shut its ethylene cracker complex at the Pulau Bukom manufacturing site in Singapore for maintenance to repair external corrosion in some areas.
Shell this month declared force majeure on production from the cracker, which annually produces more than 900,000 tonnes of ethylene, which is used in plastics. The impact of the shutdown on the regional market was expected to be minimal because there are few maintenance shutdowns scheduled over the winter for other crackers in Asia, sources said.
Singapore's onshore inventory of light oil products rose by 1.07 million barrels to a eight-month high of 13.62 million barrels, data from International Enterprise (IE) Singapore showed. Taiwan's naphtha demand rose 3.8 percent in October from the previous month to 10.25 million barrels, while gasoline demand fell 2.8 percent to 4.59 million barrels, government data showed on Thursday.
The country's gasoline exports jumped 36 percent in the month to 3.17 million barrels, although exports were down 6 percent from a year earlier, the data showed. Saigon Petro was seeking 10,000 tonnes of 95 octane gasoline for January 12-16 delivery to Cat Lai in a tender that closes on Monday with same-day validity.