Asia's naphtha crack extended losses to reach a 2-1/2-week low of $70.33 a tonne, while gasoline crack fell 6 percent to $9.46 a barrel after hitting a three-week high in the previous session. Several buyers have already booked their cargoes for May first-half this week, traders said.
Japan's Showa Denko and Mitsubishi Chemicals bought naphtha for first-half May delivery, with the former having paid a discount of 50 cents a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis and the latter having forked out a premium of $1 to Japan quotes on a C&F basis.
The difference in prices was due to the different pricing formula as buyers have the option to choose a 45-day or 30-day formula. Malaysia-based Titan had also bought a cargo for first-half May arrival at Pasir Gudang at a slight discount to Japan quotes on a C&F basis. This brought total purchases this week from Japan, South Korea, China and Malaysia to more than 270,000 tonnes for first-half May delivery.
SK Energy, which is not a regular direct buyer of Indian cargoes, bought from Indian Oil Corp (IOC) a naphtha cargo of up to 30,000 tonnes for April 10-12 loading from Kandla at a premium of about $9 a tonne to IOC's formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. This was higher than IOC's most recent deal from Kandla with buyer Socar at about $5.50 a tonne premium for a cargo loading on March 23-25.
ONGC sold a small cargo of 9,100 tonnes of naphtha to oil major BP for April 11-14 loading from Kakinada at a discount of $4 to $5 a tonne to Middle East quotes on an FOB basis. Gasoline stocks at independently held storage in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) hub fell by 24.4 percent to 889,000 tonnes, lowest since November, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International showed.