Asia’s middle distillates markets firmed as ICE gasoil futures posted a slight recovery despite thin spot trading liquidity for November physical lots.
The emergence of more November sellers, representing ongoing steady supplies from Asia, weighed slightly on overall gains.
This comes against a backdrop of a closed east-west arbitrage price differential, of which the EFS remains at a discount of around $51 a metric ton.
Refining margins of 10 ppm sulphur gasoil closed the trading session at slightly above $24 a barrel.
Spot cash premiums rose slightly to reflect the steeper November-December backwardation, but the market lacked firm buyers or sellers, as evidenced by the wide buy-sell gap.
Jet fuel refining margins went up in tandem with gasoil cracks.
Some China majors came out to the market with November-loading offers and sold cargoes at slight discounts to Singapore quotes, in line with earlier expectations.
The market was otherwise thinly discussed given the closed east-west arbitrage for Asian sellers to both northwest Europe and the United States.
Regrade remained steady at a discount of $2.20 a barrel.
SINGAPORE CASH DEALS
– No deals for both fuels.
INVENTORIES
– Analysts in a Reuters poll estimated stockpiles of gasoline were down by about 500,000 barrels last week, while distillate stockpiles, which include diesel and heating oil, were seen decreasing by about 1.8 million barrels.
REFINERY NEWS REF/OUT
– Venezuela’s largest refining complex, the 955,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Paraguana Refining Center, was operating at about 10% of capacity on Monday after two crude distillation units (CDUs) were shut due to a fire and lack of feedstock, according to four sources close to operations.
NEWS
– China’s manufacturing activity unexpectedly contracted in October, underlining the daunting task facing policymakers as they try to revitalise economic growth heading into the end of the year and 2024 amid multiple challenges at home and abroad.
– Oil prices rebounded in Asian trade on Tuesday, after a drop of more than 3% in the previous session, as worries over supply stirred by conflict in the Middle East offset dismal China data. O/R
– India’s crude oil imports fell for a fourth month in September, to their lowest in a year, Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC) data showed on Tuesday.
– Kuwait’s October fuel oil exports tumbled more than 45% after hitting a record high in September as some supply had been diverted to domestic power generation, according to trade sources, analysts and ship-tracking data.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Trixie Yap; editing by Eileen Soreng)