Asia's naphtha crack recovered 90 cents on Friday to reach a three-session high of $97.10 a tonne after two straight sessions of losses as demand provided some respite for sellers. Sellers were still selling cargoes for first-half November at discounts but at narrower levels. Taiwan's Formosa for instance paid a discount of $2 to $2.50 a tonne to its own price formula on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis for open-specification naphtha scheduled for Nov. 1-10 arrival at Mailiao.
This was narrower compared to the $3 a tonne discount it had paid on September 12. Formosa, also Asia's top naphtha importer, separately paid a premium of $1.50 a tonne for cargoes scheduled for Nov. 11-20 arrival as traders expect demand in second-half November to improve as most crackers in Japan and Korea would have completed their maintenance.
Formosa's two purchase tenders came in the same week where South Korea GS Caltex, Hanwha Total, Japan's Asahi Kasei and Malaysia's Titan had also picked up cargoes for first-half November delivery at mostly discount levels. India's MRPL has sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for Oct. 24-26 loading from New Mangalore to Unipec at premiums around $15 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.
This was higher than the $10.50 a tonne Socar had previously paid MRPL for a cargo loading on October 7-9. Asia's gasoline crack was at an eight-session low of $8.18 a barrel as Vietnam would be importing fewer and fewer cargoes going forward due to growing refining capacity. The country's new and second Nghi Son oil refinery has offered its first gasoline export cargo after receiving approval from the government earlier this month to start exporting fuel products.
In Europe, gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp refining and storage hub edged up 0.5 percent to a two-week high of 870,000 tonnes in the week to Sept. 20, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International showed. The current stocks were however 6.8 percent higher versus the same period last year.