Asia's naphtha crack was near a two-month high of $100.18 a tonne on Friday, supported by strong demand for the feedstock from petrochemical makers. Asia's gasoline crack hit a five-week high of $6.29 a barrel but the value still paled versus $10.95 in 2017 but sharply higher than 2016 at $1.83 for the same period.
South Korean S-Oil was looking to buy gasoline in a rare move to plug a supply gap as a new unit has not yet reached optimum throughput. Once successfully commissioned, S-Oil is seen exporting the new supplies from the gasoline-making unit which is able to produce 21,000 barrels per day (bpd) of petrol. Kuwait Petroleum Corp sold on Wednesday to oil major Shell 50,000 tonnes for August 22-23 loading and another 25,000 tonnes for August 24-25 loading at premiums of $21 to $22 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.
This could not be directly confirmed as buyers and sellers do not typically comment on their deals. Gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose by over 10 percent in the week to Thursday to reach a five-week high of 1.08 million tonnes, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International showed. This mirrored the trend in Singapore but contrasted the drop in US gasoline inventories.