Asia’s refining profit margin for gasoline posted a weekly gain of over 4% amid expectations of recovery in Chinese demand ahead of the Lunar Year holiday.

The gasoline crack gained 10 cents at $12.01 a barrel over Brent crude on Friday, but the upside was capped by a rise in inventories at key trading hubs.

In physical markets, energy trader PetroChina sold 50,000 barrels of benchmark grade gasoline. Naphtha markets were active for a second straight day, with energy trader Sietco buying 25,000 tonnes of second-half March naphtha.

Singapore markets closed early on Friday on account of a public holiday on Monday.

Refining profit margin for naphtha rose by $1.90 to $62.58 a tonne over Brent crude on Friday.

INVENTORIES
Naphtha stocks at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) hub fell by 19% to 309,000 tonnes in the week to Jan. 19, Insights Global data showed.
ARA gasoline inventories rose slightly to 1.369 million tonnes in the week to Thursday, compared with 1.367 million tonnes in the prior week.

U.S. gasoline inventories rose by about 3.5 million barrels in the week, government data showed, compared with analysts’ expectations for a 2.5 million-barrel gain.
Source: Reuters