NEW DELHI: Asia’s refining profit margin for gasoline extended losses on Thursday on poor demand outlook globally and renewed COVID-19 curbs in key oil-importing economy China.

Discount on the crack rose to 45 cents a barrel from 2 cents a barrel on Wednesday. Large build ups at major trading hubs have led to a decline in gasoline margins that shrank by more than 100% in August.

Global factory activity slumped in August as Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s zero COVID-19 curbs continued to hurt businesses, surveys showed.

Meanwhile, the naphtha crack recouped some losses amid weakness in crude oil benchmarks. The margin stood at a discount of $57.63 a tonne from a discount of $91.63 a day earlier.

On Thursday, the front-month second-half October naphtha was $2.25 a tonne cheaper than the following month.

Singapore’s onshore inventories of light distillates dropped 1.017 million barrels to a six-week low of 16.332 million barrels in the week to Aug. 31, official data showed.

US gasoline stocks were down 1.2 million barrels in line with analysts’ estimate.