SINGAPORE: Asian refining margins for gasoline rose on Wednesday as prices of raw material crude fell, but traders remain worried renewed lockdowns in several markets would dampen demand recovery in the region.

Refining margins, also known as cracks, for gasoline rose to $6.16 per barrel from $5.49 per barrel on Tuesday. The cracks, however, have shed about 10% in the last two weeks.

“With China the sole exception, (gasoline) demand across much of Asia will remain low for much of the second half of 2021 as virus case counts continue to pile up,” analysts at consultancy Energy Aspects said in a monthly note.

“Vaccination rates still lag in Asia, so the slightest signs of a new virus cluster will continue to trigger big restrictive reactions as governments try to snuff out further outbreaks.”

Asia’s naphtha crack slipped to $93.45 per tonne from $93.93 per tonne a day earlier.

Light-distillate inventories in the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone jumped 20.1% to 6.1 million barrels in the week to May 17, data via S&P Global Platts showed.

The weekly stocks in Fujairah have averaged 6.7 million barrels so far this year, and this week’s inventories were about 25.7% lower compared with the same period a year earlier, Reuters calculations showed.

US gasoline inventories fell by 2.8 million barrels in the week to May 14, according to two market sources, citing American Petroleum Institute (API) figures.

China’s newly imposed tax on $22 billion worth of annual imports of three fuels will have a wide-ranging impact on the global oil industry - hurting Venezuelan suppliers to Korean refiners, and big traders such as Vitol to smaller ones at home.

Investors should not fund new oil, gas and coal supply projects if the world wants to reach net zero emissions by mid-century, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday, in the top global watchdog’s starkest warning yet to curb fossil fuels.