Asia's naphtha inter-month premium was unchanged at $8 a tonne for the fifth straight session on Thursday. The inter-month premium refers to the price differential between front-month first-half May and first-half June.
South Korea's LG Chem and Hanwha Total were both seeking naphtha, with the petrochemical makers having paid an estimated premium of about $7.50 and $8.50 a tonne to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis respectively, traders said.
This could not be directly confirmed as buyers do not typically comment on their deals. India's BPCL offered 30,000 tonnes of naphtha for April 2-7 loading from Mumbai while IOC had offered 35,000 tonnes of the fuel for April 24-26 loading from Chennai.
Kuwait Petroleum Corp and Reliance Industries on the other hand had sold naphtha this week for end of April loading at premiums of $26 and more than $16 a tonne respectively to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. Asia's gasoline crack was also lower, reaching a 1-1/2 week low of $6.49 a barrel. But current gasoline fundamentals are better compared to late last year to early this year when supplies were ample.
Cargoes are also being moved out of Asia to the Americas by Trafigura. The trader is seen shipping more than 900,000 barrels of the fuel to Panama from South Korea, making this its second shipment in a month to the Americas.
Singapore's onshore light distillates stocks, which comprise mostly gasoline and gasoline blending components, fell 6.4 percent or 1.074 million barrels to a three-week low of 15.634 million barrels in the week to March 27, official data showed. This was in line with the trend in the United States where gasoline inventories fell by 2.9 million barrels last week.
Japan's JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy plans to shut a 90,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) No.3 crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Mizushima-B refinery from late April for scheduled maintenance that is expected to last until early July, a spokesman said.