Asian naphtha cracks fall at 1-1/2-week low

Asia's naphtha crack extended losses to reach a 1-1/2 week low of $94.65 a tonne as high oil prices continued to drag. Spot demand for naphtha remained muted as the annual Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) held in Singapore drew participants away. Heavy weight naphtha suppliers such as Kuwait Petroleum Corp and Saudi Aramco will be hosting events for market participants.
Asia's gasoline crack sank to more than a month low of $7.37 a barrel. Going forward, gasoline fundamentals could be hurt by additional production. In China for instance, refining capacity will grow to 880 million tonnes a year (about 17.6 million barrels per day) by 2020, said CNOOC. That would be 14 percent higher than 2017 volumes and it would also exceed China's total fuel demand, resulting in a surplus refining capacity of 136 million tonnes a year. Daqing Petrochemical Corp's 130,000 barrels per day refinery has resumed operations following two-months of maintenance. The refinery is a subsidiary of PetroChina.