Asia's naphtha crack dropped from a two-month high to touch a three-session low on Friday, while gasoline margin hit a three-month high of $1.80 a barrel premium to Brent crude on demand. Petron was looking to buy up to 5.4 million barrels of 95-octane and 97-octane gasoline for June 2019 to May 2020 delivery to Malaysian ports of Pasir Gudang, Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, Tawau, Kuantan and Bagan Luar through a tender closing on March 13.
This came at a time of strong demand from Indonesia and India. Indonesia, also Asia's top gasoline importer, has been buying more gasoline for March, which traders said could be due to factors including lower fuel prices and coming elections.
They added that Pertamina has paid discounts lower than $1.50 a barrel to Singapore 92-octane quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis for some of the 88-octane grade cargoes it was recently seeking through tenders. This was higher compared with discounts below $2 a barrel it had paid last year for 88-octane grade cargoes scheduled for first-half 2019 delivery.
Gasoline inventories held across regions of Singapore to the United States and Europe were down.
Gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub eased 2.18 percent to 1.121 million tonnes in the week to Thursday, lowest since Dec. 20 2018, as cargoes sailed to various destinations including Singapore, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International showed.
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