SHANGHAI: Asia’s gasoline crack edged higher on Wednesday for a second straight session as a decline in the US inventories strengthened demand expectations.

The crack rose to $7.75 a barrel from $7.50 on Tuesday.

American Petroleum Institute data showed gasoline inventories fell by 1 million barrels, according to sources.

However, gains remained capped as analysts were expecting the stocks to fall by about 1.6 million barrels last week.

Asia’s naphtha crack, on the other hand, inched lower, and the prompt inter-month spread narrowed to $1.50 a tonne in contango after Equinor bought a second-half October loading cargo. The crack was at $115.53 a tonne, down from 116.63 in the previous session.

Stocks of light distillates, including gasoline and naphtha, at Fujairah Oil Industry Zone rose slightly by 29,000 barrels or 0.5% on the week to 5.631 million barrels. This is a third consecutive weekly rise at the middle eastern inventories.

Oil prices dropped on Wednesday but stayed above $70 a barrel, taking a breather after recent days’ strong rally as Mexico was set to resume crude production following a major outage.