Asia's naphtha crack surpassed the $100 a tonne mark for the first time in a year on Friday as the supply crunch deepened. Benchmark open-specification naphtha crack for second-half November hit $105.90 a tonne, the highest front-month value since October 2 2018. Four months ago, naphtha crack was at its lowest in over 10 years. But the tide has changed following the Sept. 14 attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil facilities.
According to FGE, refineries in Saudi Arabia cut their runs by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) in September after the attacks. "Together, with the loss of around 120 kb/d (120,000 bpd) of non-refinery naphtha output from NGL (natural gas-to-liquid) plants, the Kingdom's naphtha exports are estimated have dropped by 130 kb/d in September," the consulting firm said in a note on October 10.
It added that planned maintenance at SASREF and Ras Laffan in October and November respectively would keep Middle Eastern naphtha exports limited. "Tightness in the regional naphtha supply is also attributed to the ongoing turnarounds at SK Energy's 100 kb/d Incheon and Dragon Aromatics' 110 kb/d Fujian condensate splitters," the note said.
It added that Asian refinery turnarounds are some 520,000 bpd higher year-on-year in October and that some of the refiners could be taking their units offline to fine-tune and re-optimise prior to the IMO 2020 implementation. IMO 2020 is when ships have to start using fuels with a lower sulphur content from January 2020.
Spot premiums have since been hitting new multi-year high as a result of squeezed supplies, with the latest open-specification cargo sold to Yeosu, South Korea, on Thursday at a premium of about $30 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F), highest since 2013. Premiums for Indian spot cargoes have likewise surged to their highest since 2013.
BPCL released a prompt cargo on Thursday for Oct. 17-19 loading from Mumbai to BP at a premium of about $40 a tonne to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. This was the highest premium BPCL has received for a cargo sold out of Mumbai since May 2013.
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) sold up to 16,000 tonnes of naphtha from Paradip in a rare move for Oct. 23-24 loading to Vitol at premiums in the high teens a tonne level to its own price formula on a FOB basis.
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