Asia's gasoline crack on Monday surged 35.4% or $1.34 to touch a six-week high of $5.12 a barrel, supported by refinery outages in the United States and production cuts in Asia. Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp will lower its 540,000 barrels-per-day refinery throughput to about 90% of its capacity this month versus close to 96.5% in June in view of the recent weak gasoline margins.
A reduction in petrol production usually affects refinery runs as refiners would normally want to minimise the yield of fuel oil as that is used as feedstock in gasoline-making units such as the residue fluid catalytic crackers (RFCCs). Separately, Formosa has plans to restore full runs at its naphtha crackers after reducing the average throughput to 95% in June due to weaker demand caused by maintenance at downstream units.
Asia's naphtha crack was at a two-session high of $26.15 a tonne on Monday, tracking gains in Brent crude and gasoline, but fundamentals of the former has remained weak due to ample supplies. Malaysia-based Titan has concluded its term purchase, having locked in about 300,000 tonnes of naphtha for October 2019-September 2020 arrival at Pasir Gudang, industry sources said.
India's BPCL sold 30,000 tonnes of naphtha late last week with a minimum paraffin content of 60% to Petro-Diamond for July 8-10 loading from Mumbai at close to a premium of $9 to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. BPCL had initially offered two cargoes out of Mumbai, but cancelled the sale of another cargo, which has a minimum paraffin content of 66%.
A minor fire had broken out at Indian Oil Corp's 150,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Haldia refinery but that has been brought under control, and that there will be no impact on its supply, the company said in a statement on Saturday. Some 16 tankers have been booked out of Europe on the transatlantic route since a massive fire broke out at Philadelphia Energy Solutions Inc's refinery site.
Marathon Petroleum Corp has cut production at its 585,000-barrel-per-day-capacity Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas City, Texas, following the shutdown of a gasoline-producing unit for repairs caused by a leak. The refinery's 140,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Fluidic Catalytic Cracking Unit 3 (FCCU 3) was shut early on Friday and repair works could last two to four weeks.