Several Japanese and South Korean buyers were in the market this week, mostly to buy naphtha for second-half February delivery. India's Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for Feb. 4-6 loading from New Mangalore to Trafigura at premiums of about $17 a tonne to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis, traders said. But this could not be independently confirmed as buyers and sellers do not typically comment on their deals.
The current premium was, however, slightly higher then the two cargoes MRPL had sold for January loading at an average of about $16 a tonne per cargo, Reuters data showed.
Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) on the other hand had sold 20,000 tonnes of naphtha for end January loading from Vizag to Petro-Diamond at discount levels to Middle East quotes on a FOB basis, traders said. This could not be directly verified.
Asia's gasoline crack stayed at a discount for the third day but the discount level narrowed to 14 cents a barrel versus 22 cents in the previous day. Singapore's onshore light distillates stocks had eased by about 4.2 percent from the record high last week to reach around 15.43 million barrels in the week to Jan. 9, data from Enterprise Singapore showed.
So did gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub where inventories edged down by 0.5 percent from over a nine-month high last week to 1.367 million tonnes in the week to Thursday, data from Dutch consultancy PJK International showed. India's Reliance Industries Ltd, operator of the world's biggest refining complex at Jamnagar in western Gujarat, will shut one of its crude refining units from Jan. 16 for about 4 weeks for maintenance.