Asia's naphtha crack fell to a four-session low of $20.55 a tonne on Tuesday while gasoline margin had also eased to a three-session low of $3.04 a barrel on ample supplies. Refinery outages in the United States were not giving support to the Asian market as it did in the previous day as gasoline stockpiles in the United States were seen to have increased last week by 217,000 barrels, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Monday.
As for naphtha, spot demand was mostly muted following purchases from South Korea's SK Energy on Monday. India's BPCL offered two cargoes of naphtha totalling 60,000 tonnes but with different paraffin content for July 8-10 loading from Mumbai via a tender which closes on June 26. It had previously sold a cargo out of Mumbai for May 11-13 loading to Shell at a premium of about $8 a tonne to its own price formula on a FOB basis.
China's WEPEC has offered up to 34,000 tonnes of 91-octane grade gasoline for July 27-29 loading from Dalian. CNOOC was looking to sell two cargoes totalling up to 52,000 tonnes for late July loading from Huizhou. CNOOC's cargoes comprise up to 37,000 tonnes for July 30-31 loading from Dagang Terminal and up to 15,000 tonnes for July 27-28 loading from Donglian Terminal.