Asia's naphtha stayed firm on tight supplies as reflected in this week's spot deals where premiums were higher compared with two weeks ago. Premiums of spot cargoes sold to Taiwan and sold out of India were at their highest in over three years.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp, Asia's top naphtha importer, for instance had to pay a premium of some $15 a tonne to its own price formula on a cost-and-freight late this week for the fuel, making this the highest premium it had paid since May 2014.
Traders said buying interest for naphtha has been strong and that the seasonal demand for gasoline worsened the tight supplies as the former is also used as a blending component for petrol. India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) has offered 30,000 tonnes of naphtha for June 15-17 loading from Mumbai through a tender closing on May 30.
This came shortly after it sold a cargo at about $36 a tonne premium to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB), making this the highest premium fetched for a Kochi naphtha cargo since 2014. Egypt, which does not regularly offer spot cargoes from Suez, emerged with a tender to sell 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for June 17-19 loading.
Asia's gasoline crack was at a four-session low of $9.59 a barrel but this was 40.6 percent higher than the value from a month ago. Indonesia's Pertamina, also the top importer of gasoline in Asia, issued yet another spot tender seeking 88-octane grade gasoline.
This time it was looking to buy two 200,000-barrels cargoes for second-half June loading from Singapore/Malaysia. The tender closes on May 28, with offers to stay valid until May 31. It had previously sought some 1.73 million barrels of gasoline through two spot tenders and had bought some but not all of the volumes, traders said.