The profit margin on Asia gasoline hovered near a two-month high on Friday at $8.10 a barrel while the naphtha crack edged up to a three-day high of $23 a tonne due to a drop in feedstock oil prices. Fundamentals for naphtha, however, were weak as supplies have persistently outpaced demand and kept spot prices for open-specification grades mostly at discount levels.

Malaysia-based Titan cancelled a tender to buy naphtha for second-half October delivery but the reasons were not clear, industry sources said. Naphtha spot demand this week through tenders has been slow as a major annual oil event in Singapore from Monday to Wednesday this week drew participants away from the market.

Gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose in the week to Thursday by more t an 14% to a near one-month high of 1.079 million tonnes, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.

But inventories in Singapore and the United States were lower week-on-week.

Copyright Reuters, 2019