Asia's naphtha halts falls, gasoline edges higher

The naphtha crack climbed $6.65 a barrel from the previous session to $109.45 a tonne on Thursday. The naphtha margin hit a near two-year high of $123.73 a tonne on Friday.

Asia's gasoline crack also edged up 22 cents a barrel to $8.46 a barrel.

Singapore onshore light distillates stocks, which comprise mostly gasoline and blending components for petrol, inched up by about 0.2%, or 22,000 barrels, to a four-week high of 11.258 million barrels in the week to Dec. 4, data from Enterprise Singapore showed.

Over 144,000 tonnes of Chinese gasoline were imported into Singapore in the week to Wednesday, down from 206,000 tonnes in the week before, the data showed.

In the United States, gasoline stocks rose by 3.4 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 1.8 million-barrel gain.

US crude inventories fell by 4.9 million barrels in the week to Nov. 29, compared with analysts' expectations for a decrease of 1.7 million barrels.

Copyright Reuters, 2019

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