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Asian oil product swaps firmed on Friday in the last trading session of the year, but regrade values narrowed as gas oil gained strength on fresh Indonesian demand. January regrade, or the premium of jet-kerosene to gas oil, weakened 30 cents from Thursday to $5.00 a barrel.

Gas oil swaps rose to $66.00 a barrel for January, from $65.70 a day ago.

Indonesia's Pertamina plans to import an additional 500,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel in January due to problems at the Balongan refinery.

The timespread between January and February gas oil was pegged at 15 cents a barrel in backwardation, and gas oil's January crack over Middle East Dubai crude was steady at $12.30 a barrel.

January fuel oil paper was quoted at $290.50 a tonne, up 50 cents from Thursday.

The contangoed level between January and February fuel oil was unchanged at $2.50 a tonne, while the January fuel oil crack to Dubai widened to minus $9.03 a barrel from minus $8.80 a day earlier.

The market was dampened by heavy incoming supply. East Asia will receive 2.8 million tonnes of Western fuel oil imports in January, the highest monthly volume since October 2004.

Benchmark NYMEX February crude was down 16 cents at $60.16 a barrel by 0452 GMT, paring a 50-cent gain in New York on Thursday. Global oil markets will close on Monday to mark the New Year.

Copyright Reuters, 2005


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