NEW DELHI: Asia’s gasoline crack declined on Wednesday after U.S. inventories rose and crude oil benchmarks strengthened.

The refining profit margin for gasoline dropped to $10.67 a barrel from $14.34 a barrel on a day earlier.

U.S. gasoline inventories rose by about 268,000 barrels last week, market sources said, against analysts’ estimates of a 1.5 million barrels drop in a Reuters poll.

Light distillate stocks at the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone (FOIZ) declined by 181,000 barrels to 8.422 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 22, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.

NAPHTHA:

The naphtha crack in the region dipped to the lowest in more than two months to a discount of $66.38 a tonne from a discount of $45.33 in the last session amid weak demand from petrochemical facilities.

REFINERY NEWS:

South Korea’s S-Oil Corp said on Tuesday it has been ordered by local fire authorities to suspend the operation of some of its processing units for 15 days due to the violation of safety management rules.

The company halted production at its four main units in Onsan - the No.2 and 3 crude distillation units (CDU), the Hydrocracker (HYC) unit and the No.1 Paraxylene(PX) unit – as well as four other sub-units from Sept. 1 to Sept. 15.