Asia's gasoline crack returned to positive territory for the first time since Feb. 11, supported by demand from Indonesia. Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina has been seeking gasoline through tenders that traders said were additional demand. It was looking to buy the fuel through a three-month contract as well as spot tenders.
Based on data released by Singapore Enterprise, Indonesia had imported close to 240,000 tonnes of gasoline from Singapore in the week ended Feb. 20, making this its highest weekly purchase from the country in close to a month. Asia's front-month naphtha crack for first-half April eased by 70 cents to a two-session low of $44.05 a tonne on muted demand.
Indian Oil Corp has sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for loading March 15-17 from Chennai at premiums around $18.50 a tonne to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis, traders said. This was lower than a cargo sold to BP for loading in late February at a premium of $23.
Reliance Industries, on the other hand, had sold 55,000 tonnes of naphtha for March 11-15 loading from Sikka at a premium in the high teens per tonne to Middle East quotes FOB. Traders said Reliance Industries has previously sold two naphtha cargoes to Exxon Mobil, which was unusual because the oil major does not typically import naphtha from India.
This could not be confirmed directly, but shipping data from Refinitiv shows that Exxon Mobil has chartered the Chao Hu vessel to load naphtha from Sikka on February 21. Exxon Mobil Corp said on Thursday that it has shut some units since Feb. 20 for maintenance at one of its two refineries in Singapore.
Saudi Aramco plans to shut the Yanbu oil refinery in Saudi Arabia for a month of maintenance from early March, trade sources said, but this could not be confirmed. Venezuela is paying heavy premiums for fuel imports from Russia and Europe, with fewer than a dozen sellers seeing the risk as worth the reward after flows from the United States dried up because of sanctions, trading sources said and data showed. Rosneft is loading 60,000 tonnes of naphtha in a ship-to-ship transfer off Cyprus, Refinitiv Eikon data shows.