Although weekly data released this week showed that gasoline stocks had fallen in Singapore and the US, overall supplies were not tight, traders said. Japan's Mitsui Chemicals is expected to restart its 612,000 tonnes per year (tpy) Ichihara naphtha cracker by May 12 following a glitch last week which coincided with several crackers in South Korea and Japan either already in maintenance or about to enter turnaround mode. Hanwha Total Petrochemicals in the meantime is to restart a cracker in June which had in late March undergone maintenance and expansion works.
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) sold 35,000 tonnes of naphtha for June 1-3 loading from Chennai to a Western trading house but price details were not immediately available, industry sources said. IOC had recently sold two cargoes for May loading at an average premium of $17 a tonne to its own price formula on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. Singapore's onshore light distillates inventories, comprising gasoline and gasoline blending components, fell 8.28 percent of 1.113 million barrels to a six-month low of 12.324 million barrels in the week to May 8, data from Enterprise Singapore released on Thursday.
About 90,000 tonnes of gasoline arrived in Singapore from Norway after a long absence, the data showed. But the grade at below 90-octane level can only be used by countries such as Indonesia as most in the region have moved to higher octane petrol. US gasoline stock levels fell 596,000 barrels last week Energy Information Administration data showed, more than analyst' estimates of a 400,000 barrels drop.
Demand was strong at 9.9 million bpd, near levels associated with later in the summer.
Japan's gasoline inventories in contrast were up after having risen by 110,000 barrels to 10.09 million barrels in the week to May 4, official data showed.
India' MRPL will operate its 300,000 barrels-per-day refinery in southern India at about 50 percent capacity from Thursday due to water shortage.