Asia's naphtha crack extended gains for the sixth straight session to hit a near 4-1/2 month high on Thursday at $106.03 a tonne as supplies were squeezed while demand stayed firm. Formosa, Asia's top naphtha buyer, bought around 100,000 tonnes of open-specification grade naphtha for second-half June delivery to Mailiao at premiums of about $12 a tonne to its own price formula on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis.
Not only was this about double the premiums it had paid on April 27 but this was the highest it had forked out since December 13, 2017. In two days between May 8 and 9, South Korea's YNCC, Lotte Chemical, SK Energy and Taiwan's Formosa had snapped up a total of at least 235,000 tonnes of naphtha for second-half June delivery.
Asia's gasoline crack at $7.17 a barrel was at its highest since April 30 as a sharper-than-expected drawdown in gasoline stocks in key market United States could have given some support. US gasoline stocks fell 2.2 million barrels versus expectations in a Reuters poll for a 450,000-barrel drop while the US gasoline futures rose to $2.1674 a gallon which marked the highest since August 2017.
Singapore's onshore light distillates stocks, which comprise mostly gasoline and blending components for petrol, in contrast rose 6.37 percent or 797,000 barrels to reach a three-week high of 13.306 million barrels in the week to May 9, official data showed.