Asia Naphtha/Gasoline-Naphtha margin falls on tepid demand

Asia’s naphtha refining profit margin declined on Tuesday amid a lack of demand due to ongoing cracker turnaround season, although hopes of tightening supplies from the West limited the downside.

The crack fell by about $4 to $50.98 per metric ton over Brent crude. The price of second-half July naphtha fell by $3.50 to $674 per ton in backwardation price structure.

“Blending component demand for gasoline production remains supportive but seems to be affected by the weakness seen in Europe, while overall requirements for petrochemical feedstock remained subdued,” Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in a monthly report.

REFINERY NEWS

Australian fuel retailer Ampol Ltd ALD.AX said on Tuesday it intends to start a planned turnaround at its 110,000 barrel per day (bpd) Lytton refinery in Queensland in July.

Indonesia’s state refiner Pertamina is ramping up operations at its Balikpapan refinery after completing a revamp that started in February, a company official said on Tuesday.

OTHER NEWS

– OPEC stuck to its forecast for relatively strong growth in global oil demand in 2024 on Tuesday and said there was a chance the world economy could do better than expected this year.
– Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Tuesday there was “not one shred of evidence” of ship-to-ship transfers of sanctioned Iranian oil off Malaysia, amid U.S. concern that Iran was using Malaysian service providers to move its oil.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS

One naphtha trade, no gasoline deals.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Mohi Narayan; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)