Asia Distillates-Activity ticks up, CPC Corp starts off with Sept offers

Asia’s middle distillates markets started to see a slight uptick in market activity and some deals in the open trading window, following gains in the ICE and crude futures markets, while some September discussions started.

Physical deals emerged for the first time this trading week, with 400,000 barrels of jet fuel being sold to Vitol on a free-on-board Straits and Arab-Gulf basis.

September offers emerged from refiners, with Taiwan’s CPC Corp closing their tender on Thursday for up to 450,000 barrels of 10ppm sulphur gasoil cargoes.

Paper swap markets started to see a steeper contango structure at the end of the month given the continuously strong selling interest.

Refining margins GO10SGCKMc1, however, end up slipping for a second straight session to around $16.50 a barrel, as gasoil futures gains were still slower than crude movements for now.

Meanwhile, spot market discounts widened further GO10-SIN-DIF as a reflection of their weaker July paper market performance. A lack of bids continued to plague the markets for a second straight trading session.

On the jet fuel front, while deals on the window emerged, remaining discussions were still slow-paced as some sellers had not yet started September activity.

Regrade JETREG10SGMc1 barely moved from the previous session, remaining at a discount of 95 cents a barrel.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS O/AS

– No deals for gasoil, two jet fuel deals.

INVENTORIES

– U.S. crude oil, gasoline and distillate inventories fell last week, according to market sources citing American Petroleum Institute figures on Tuesday.

– Middle distillates stocks held at Fujairah Oil Industry Zone fell to almost a five-month low for the week ended July 29, according to industry information service S&P Global Commodity Insights.

REFINERY NEWS REF/OUT

– Cenovus Energy CVE.TO shut down a unit at its 183,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in Lima, Ohio, on Tuesday, the company said.

NEWS

– China’s manufacturing activity slipped to a five-month nadir in July as factories grappled with falling new orders and low prices, an official survey showed on Wednesday, pointing to a grinding second half for the world’s production powerhouse.

– India’s diesel and jet fuel shipments to Singapore and Australia are set to hit the highest levels in 2-1/2 years in July as sellers looked east with demand tepid from Europe, according to industry sources and shipping data.

– Oil futures rebounded more than $1 a barrel from 7-week lows on Wednesday after the killing of a Hamas leader in Iran ratcheted up tensions in the Middle East, but prices remain under pressure from concerns about weak China demand.

– Russian shipping company Sovcomflot has started this year’s transportation of Urals crude oil to Asia via the Northern Sea Route, according to market sources and LSEG data on Tuesday, as melting ice opens the Arctic route for transit shipments.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Trixie Yap; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)