Asia's naphtha crack touched a fresh 6-1/2-month high of $97.18 a tonne on Thursday, supported by a string of demand. Japan's Showa Denko has bought naphtha for second-half October delivery at a small discount to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis, but this was pegged to a 45-day pricing formula instead of the more commonly used 30-day formula, traders said.
However, this could not be independently verified as buyers typically do not comment on their deals. It was unclear when Showa Denko purchased the cargo, but South Korea and Malaysia had bought a total of more than 120,000 tonnes of naphtha for second-half October delivery in the previous session.
India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) on Tuesday sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for September 18-20 loading from Mumbai to Itochu at premiums of about $3 a tonne to the refiner's price formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. BPCL had also sold 35,000 tonnes of the fuel for September 25-27 loading from Mumbai to Total at premiums of about $8.50 a tonne to the same formula.
This brought BPCL's shipment for September to a total of 136,000 tonnes, making this its highest volume sold out of Mumbai in a single month this year, but it has not sold any naphtha from Kochi for September loading. South Korea's KPIC has restarted 800,000 tonnes per year (tpy) naphtha cracker following an unplanned shutdown on Tuesday.
Asia's gasoline crack was at a two-week low of $12.89 a barrel but eyes are on hurricane Irma just as tropical storm Harvey has subsided. Irma has shut down oil terminals across the northern Caribbean, worsening the crunch in fuel supply in Latin American countries that have struggled to meet demand since Hurricane Harvey disrupted shipments from the US Gulf Coast last month.
Singapore's onshore light distillates stocks eased 4.5 percent of 557,000 barrels to reach a seven-week low of about 11.78 million barrels in the week to September 6, official data showed. The data showed that Singapore had exported nearly 105,000 tonnes of gasoline to Mexico between August 24 and September 6. Singapore had also shipped around 57,400 tonnes of petrol to Iran in the week ended September 6, the data showed.