Asia's naphtha crack spread extended gains to $120.80 a tonne, making this the highest value since January 8 2016 for the second straight session on Thursday. Fundamentals were strong and some traders as well as end users expect supplies to be tight.
This was because most of the incoming naphtha from the West, including Europe and the Mediterranean were not paraffinic naphtha, a grade which is preferred by operators of naphtha crackers. Demand in the meantime persisted, with China's CNOOC seeking 80,000 to 105,000 tonnes of naphtha for December 8-23 arrival at Huizhou in a tender closing on November 3.
Asia's gasoline crack spread reached a 1-1/2 month high of $10.89 a barrel, supported by active trades in the Singapore cash market. Nine deals totalling 450,000 barrels of gasoline changed hands, making this the highest volume traded in a single session since September 4. Singapore's onshore light distillate stocks, which comprise mostly gasoline and blending components for petrol, jumped nearly 16 percent to reach a two-week high of 11.56 million barrels in the week to November 2.
The current stock levels were about 3 percent higher than a year ago. The data also showed that nearly 36,000 tonnes of gasoline were shipped to Singapore from Iran, which is usually short of petrol. India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) has ramped up the operating rate of its Kochi oil refinery after completing an expansion to about 13 million tonnes per year (tpy), or about 260,000 barrels per day (bpd), up from its original capacity of 9.5 million tpy.
Japan's Toa Oil said on Thursday that it was preparing to restart its fire-hit 70,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Keihin refinery in eastern Japan. Royal Dutch Shell Plc cancelled a plan in the US to permanently close the gasoline-producing unit at its 227,586 barrel-per-day (bpd) Convent, Louisiana, oil refinery.
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