- South Korea's SK Energy bought more than 50,000 tonnes of naphtha for first-half March delivery at premiums of about $6.25 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis.

- The purchase came shortly after China's CNOOC, South Korea's Lotte Chem and Hanwha Total had scooped up cargoes also for first-half March delivery.

- Overall, premiums in South Korea have fallen to some three-month low.

GASOLINE: Asia's gasoline crack was at a 1-1/2 week high of $8.07 a barrel but cash deals in the Singapore market came to a standstill for the first time in about a week.

- Traders said the market was not lacking in supplies due to high refinery runs not only in Europe and the US, but also in the Asian region.

- Although refinery utilization rates in the US fell 2.3 percentage points to 93 percent of total capacity in the week to Jan. 12, this was still seasonally high.

- In Japan, refinery utilization was near highest in the week to Jan. 13 since Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ) started publishing the data in 2003.