Asia's naphtha crack fell for a third straight session on Wednesday to a five-session low of $40.30 a tonne as the market focused on cracker outages and looked past a steady stream of demand. South Korea's YNCC bought two naphtha cargoes at discounts of about $7 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis, down from discounts of about $5 it had paid on September 28 for cargoes delivery in first-half November.
Japan's Idemitsu Kosan also bought a cargo for second-half November delivery but at discounts of about $5 a tonne to Japan quotes on a C&F basis. Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical was also in the market looking to buy naphtha for second-half November delivery to Mailiao. But details of the deal were not clear. Traders said the overall sentiment of the market was weak. "There are some outages and maintenance of crackers going on," a Singapore-based trader highlighted some of the factors behind the weaker market. Taiwan's CPC has shut a 380,000 tonnes per year (tpy) No 4 cracker last week following an outage. The unit is expected to restart any time between October 13 and 15.