Asia's gasoline crack was near a three-month high of $10.95 a barrel on Thursday, supported by a heavy drawdown on inventories in the US Singapore onshore light distillates stocks, which comprise mostly gasoline and blending components for petrol, were also down, falling 7.6 percent or 965,000 barrels to a two-week low of 11.68 million barrels in the week to July 19, official data showed.
This came a day after gasoline stocks in the US fell for the fifth straight week, according to the US Energy Information Administration. US stocks were down 4.4 million barrels compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 655,000-barrel drop. This could potential result in more European gasoline going to the US and may affect naphtha as well. Naphtha is also used as a blending component for gasoline and strong demand would result in more of the fuel being channelled to make petrol instead of being exported to Asia. Asia's naphtha crack eased from a five-week high to reach a two-session low of $59.88 a tonne on Thursday, hit by stronger Brent crude.
India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) has sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for loading from Mumbai to Gunvor at a premium of about $2 a tonne to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. This was $1 lower when compared to a cargo BPCL had sold for July 25-27 loading from the same port.
BPCL had also sold 55,000 tonnes of the fuel for August 7-8 loading from Kochi to Vitol at premiums of about $7 to $8 a tonne. This was also slightly down when compared to $9 a tonne BPCL had fetched for a cargo sold out of Kochi for July 14-16 loading. Reliance Industries has a tender to sell 55,000 tonnes of naphtha for August 15-18 loading from Sikka.
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