NEW DELHI: Asia’s naphtha prices fell on Tuesday after rising briefly in the last session, and the Singapore trading window witnessed an exchange of first-half August naphtha for a second straight day this week.

The crack was steady at about $17 a tonne over Brent crude in contango structure. The first-half July naphtha traded 50 cents cheaper than the following month.

Meanwhile, the arbitrage window remained closed, with the East-West spread, in the negative territory for the eighth straight session, falling deeper.

In physical markets, energy trader BP bought 25,000 tonnes of naphtha from Sietco for a fourth straight session, while Total bought 50,000 barrels of benchmark-grade of gasoline, market participants said.

The gasoline crack rose by 21 cents to $11.09 a barrel over Brent crude as the summer driving season kicked off in the US.

Oil fell by nearly 2% as concerns about the US debt ceiling pact cooled the market’s risk-on sentiment and mixed messages from major producers clouded the supply outlook ahead of their meeting this weekend.

India will look at building smaller oil refineries because of problems in acquiring land as it aims to raise its annual refining capacity to 9 million barrels per day (bpd), oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.