Asia Naphtha/Gasoline-Gasoline margins hit two-month high on supply disruptions

SINGAPORE: Asia's naphtha crack rose for a second session on Thursday to reach a near 7-week high, while gasoline margin hit a two-month high of $6.36 a barrel driven by petrol supply disruptions in the United States and production cuts in Asia, industry sources said.

- "The higher gasoline crack is a result of refinery run-cuts because margins had been bad previously," said one of sources.

- US refinery problems including the pending permanent shutdown of the largest and oldest refinery in the East Coast had also lifted the Asian crack value, which closely tracks the Nymex gasoline futures performance.

- As the 335,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Philadelphia Energy Solutions is set to shut following a massive fire two weeks ago, more than 650,000 tonnes of gasoline were booked for the United States from Europe this month.

- Separately, the Philadelphia refinery has begun offering to sell off its stocks of oil and some equipment, according to four people familiar with the matter, after the refinery's owner said the company would seek to permanently shut it.

- Asia's naphtha crack, in the meantime, could cross the $65 a tonne mark over the next three months as suggested by its wave pattern and projection analysis, said Reuters technical analyst Wang Tao.

* INVENTORIES: Gasoline stockpiles fell in Singapore and the United States

- US gasoline stocks for instance fell last week by 1.6 million barrels, data from the Energy Information Administration.

- Singapore's onshore light distillates stocks, which comprise mostly gasoline and blending components for petrol, fell 6.6% or 808,000 barrels to reach a five-week low of 11.428 million barrels in the week to Wednesday, data from Enterprise Singapore showed.