Asia's naphtha eased to a three-session low of $73.38 a tonne on Wednesday as high oil prices countered firm demand. Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical, also Asia's top naphtha importer by volume, was out to buy open-specification naphtha for Aug. 11 to 20 delivery to Mailiao through a tender closing on June 28.
The tender came less than a week after Formosa on Friday bought about 100,000 tonnes of the fuel for first-half August delivery at premiums of $4.50 to $4.75 a tonne to its own price formula on a cost-and-freight basis. Its most recent purchase price was the lowest it had paid since March. Formosa operates three naphtha crackers which have a total capacity of about 2.93 million tonnes of ethylene a year.
The smallest of the three crackers, a 700,000-tonne-per-year unit, was shut for 40 to 45 days of scheduled maintenance since early June. India's HMEL sold 15,000 tonnes of naphtha for July 11-13 loading from Mumbai to a Western trader, but the price was not clear. Asia's gasoline crack was at a four-session low of $3.95 a barrel, just 35 cents shy of a 22-month low of $3.60 hit on June 20.