Asia's gasoline crack returned to a small premium of 6 cents a barrel as demand from India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia was seen.

Sri Lanka emerged with a tender to buy 318,750 barrels of 92-octane grade petrol for March 20-21 arrival at Colombo while Indonesia's Pertamina was seeking 200,000 barrels of 88-octane grade for March lifting from either Singapore or Malaysia.

These tenders came at a time when India was also seeking petrol to cater to its local demand.

NAPHTHA TENDERS: India's Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) sold up to 24,000 tonnes of naphtha for Feb. 27 to March 1 loading from Mumbai at premiums around the mid-single digit a tonne level to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.

Indian Oil Corp (IOC) sold up to 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for Feb. 26-28 loading from Chennai more than a week ago to BP at premiums at about $23 a tonne to its own formula on a FOB basis.

This was higher versus around $16 IOC had fetched for a cargo sold out of the same port for Feb. 17-19 loading, traders said.

This however could not be directly confirmed as buyers and sellers do not typically comment on their deals.

OTHER NEWS: The second largest crude distillation unit (CDU) was shut by a fire on Sunday at Phillips 66's 330,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) joint-venture Wood River, Illinois, refinery. nL1N20600D

The 120,000 bpd DU-2 CDU was returning to operation after an overhaul when the fire broke out, the source said.