Asia's naphtha crack slipped 1.3 percent from a near two-week high to $132.93 a tonne as most South Korean buyers may have completed their first-half August purchases. Others, such as Taiwan's Formosa, continued to replace a small portion of naphtha with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The Taiwanese buyer, Asia's top naphtha importer, bought 22,000 tonnes of LPG for late July to first-half August delivery at a discount of about $70 a tonne to the naphtha price, against minus $50 a tonne it paid previously for July volumes.
South Korea's YNCC on the other hand bought a total of around 75,000 tonnes of naphtha, or three medium-range vessel size cargoes for first first-half August delivery at premium of around $8.50 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis. This was unchanged from what YNCC paid on June 20 for 50,000 tonnes of naphtha for the same delivery period. Higher supplies ahead from new processing units in South Korea and Singapore however weighed on Indian spot premiums, traders said. India's Bharat Petroleum Corp sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for July 21-23 loading from Mumbai to oil major Shell at about $26 a tonne above Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. This reflected a 35 to 37 percent drop in sales premium for BPCL as it had previously sold a cargo for June 21-23 loading from the same port to PetroChina at $40 to $41 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a FOB basis.
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