Asia's naphtha crack extended gains to reach a three-session high of $45.68 a tonne after hitting a 17-month low on June 7 as heavy supplies dragged. Demand for naphtha from South Korea, however, has been healthy, with Lotte Chemical buying naphtha for arrival in the second half of July at a discount of about $4 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis.
This was mostly in keeping with levels since early June as weak fundamentals persisted. "The weak market is going to last for quite a while," one Singapore-based trader said.
Supplies are set to increase with two more condensate splitters being added later this year, one in South Korea and another in Qatar, a key naphtha exporter to Asia. Hyundai Chemical, a joint venture between Hyundai Oilbank Co and Lotte Chemical, is due to start trial runs at a new 110,000 bpd splitter in Daesan. The unit is expected to be ready in the second half of this year.
Qatar will double its capacity for processing condensate by almost 150,000 bpd in August when trials begin on a new splitter at the Ras Laffan refinery, with commercial production starting by October. More than 50 percent of the oil products yield from a condensate splitter is naphtha, trader said.
GASOLINE GAINS Asia's gasoline crack reached a four-session high of $7.19 a barrel, with a total of 350,000 barrels of the fuel traded on the Singapore cash market - the highest volume in a single session since June 1. Gasoline from Asia could have also moved to the United States. A note from consultancy FGE on Friday said that at least one gasoline cargo was shipped from Singapore to the US West Coast.
Higher prices in America and wildfires in Canada, plus some refining outages in California, could have drawn in the cargoes, FGE said. This could not be independently verified. The company added that it expects a rebound in gasoline cracks this month and in July despite current bearish factors of lower Indonesia gasoline imports and high refinery runs. "Indonesia will be increasing its gasoline imports for stockpiling ahead of the Eid celebrations in July. By our estimations, imports could increase as much as 60,000 bpd or 23 percent from the levels in the first quarter," it said.