Asia's gasoline profit-margin rose to a near one month high of $7.70 a barrel on Thursday, supported by a drawdown in stock levels. Singapore's onshore light distillates stocks, which comprise mostly gasoline and blending components for petrol, fell to a three-week low of 9.8 million barrels in the week to Thursday, official data showed. This follows the trend in the United States where gasoline inventories fell by 1.4 million barrels last week, while demand jumped by 281,000 bpd to a record 9.93 million bpd, according to Energy Information Administration data going back to 1991. A fire had broken out on Thursday at Pertamina's Balikpapan refinery but the company said the refinery remained operational.

It issued a tender to buy a total of 1.1 million barrels of 88-octane grade gasoline for September loading from either Singapore or Malaysia. The tender closes on Aug. 19, with offers to stay valid until August 21. One trader said the tender might not be related to the fire as Pertamina occasionally buys cargoes from the spot market. Naphtha remained weak due to plentiful supplies in contrast to gasoline.

The crack value was at a two-session low of $20.88 a tonne although demand has emerged this week from Malaysia's Titan and South Korea's GS Caltex and Lotte Chemical. Japan had imported 1.13 million tonnes of naphtha in July, up by about 25% compared to June and nearly 1.6% higher versus a year ago in line with higher ethylene output, official data showed.

Copyright Reuters, 2019