Asia's naphtha fundamentals stayed firm with the front-month second-half May price being pushed higher to $13.75 a tonne against second-half June value on Friday compared with $13.50 in the previous session. This was the widest inter-month premium seen since March 31, 2015. Front-month prices are typically higher than the following months when fundamentals are strong.
Asia's naphtha crack, however, was still traded at a discount to Brent crude oil, but this was due to weakness in the gasoline sector where Asia's gasoline crack was at a three-session low of $8.04 a barrel.
Gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub slipped from an all-time to a two-week low of 1.362 million tonnes in the week to Thursday, data from PJK International showed.
But the current stock levels were 24.4 percent higher than a year ago. Singapore's light distillates stocks in the week to April 4 were also down from a historical high but the current fundamentals were weak as reflected in the fuel being stored aboard vessels like in Europe.
ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals Ltd (OMPL) has purchased 105,000 tonnes of heavy cut naphtha from Vitol, making this the company's first import tender since 2015, traders said.
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