Asia's naphtha crack eases at two-day low

Asia's naphtha crack ended the week at a two-day low of $51.85 a tonne after hitting a two-month high in the previous session, as demand was mostly muted following a string of purchases.

This week's buyers include South Korea's YNCC, Hanwha, LG Chem, Taiwan's CPC and Malaysia-based Titan.

India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) had sold 33,000-38,500 tonnes of naphtha late Thursday for May loading from Mumbai to BP at premiums of about $30 to $31 a tonne to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.

The state-owned refiner has an outstanding tender to sell another 35,00-tonne parcel for May 4-5 loading from Kochi.

Indian Oil Corp has cancelled a tender to sell 14,000-16,000 tonnes of naphtha for May 13-14 loading from Kandla.

The reasons behind the cancellation were unclear.

Asia's gasoline discounts to Brent widened to $4.21 a barrel versus $2.76 in the previous session as supplies remain high on lack of demand.

Gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub edged up 2.8% to reach an 8-week high of 1.19 million tonnes in the week to Thursday, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.

Gasoline cargoes from ARA were seen going to Singapore and China.

As demand for gasoline and other transportation fuels has been severely crushed by lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus, more cargoes are sitting onboard vessels as onshore tanks to hold them have ran out.

The volume of key oil products held in floating storage around the globe has more than doubled in the past month to about 68 million barrels, according to data from oil analytics firm Vortexa.

Mexican state oil company Pemex has declared force majeure over fuel imports from its trading arm PMI Comercio Internacional.

Many gasoline and diesel importers around the world have declared force majeure to avoid penalties related to the suspension of supply contracts or scheduled spot purchases.

But there are hopes that demand in China would pick up.

A rebound in gasoline demand will occur as commuters use more private cars to avoid public transport.

Location technology firm TomTom's traffic index shows that congestion in major Chinese cities is matching year-ago levels during weekdays.

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