Asia's naphtha falls on stubborn glut

28 May, 2019

Asia's naphtha crack fell for the fifth straight session on Friday to reach a 6-1/2 month low of $13.18 a tonne, a discount of steeper than $9 a barrel to Brent oil, on the back of a stubborn glut.
In view of the weak market, ADNOC's offers for four of its naphtha grades scheduled for August 2019 to July 2020 at $16 to $20 a tonne premiums to its own price formula was considered high by many of its buyers, industry sources said.
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has offered 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for June 16-18 loading from Chennai through a tender closing on May 27.
It had previously sold a cargo for June 1-3 loading from the same port to a western trader.
BPCL, on the other hand, was looking to buy 35,000 tonnes of 91.5-octane grade gasoline for June 18-22 arrival at Mumbai through a tender due to be awarded on May 31.
BPCL does not regularly import gasoline.
Asia's gasoline crack fell for the fourth straight session to reach a two-week low of $4.04 a barrel as supplies weighed.
Gasoline stocks in key regions of Singapore, the US and Europe were up as shown in the latest data.
Gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub for instance surged 17% in the week to Thursday to a three-week high of 937,000 tonnes, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.
This was however 6.1 percent lower versus stocks held in ARA for the same period last year.

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