Asia’s middle distillates markets recorded margin rebounds for the first time in four weeks, despite physical cargo activity toning down in the open trading window week-on-week and outlook remaining mostly bearish in the near-term.
A handful of northeast Asia-based refiners were still clearing their August spot sales at the start of the week, but sales remained at discounts of around $1.50 on average – and likewise for July loading spot cargoes.
Refining margins GO10SGCKMc1 for the week remained at three-week-high levels of $17.60 a barrel as a reflection of weaker crude futures, overall little changed ICE gasoil futures and paper market discussion levels.
Cash differentials GO10-SIN-DIF rose slightly by 3 cents from the previous session to a discount of 26 cents a barrel, but were 4 cents lower from a week earlier.
Markets were slightly more bullish as some tightness in northeast Asia continued to buoy spot market discussions, albeit deals were still being done in the discounted territory for August shipments.
This comes following some lack in supply of the aviation fuel in Japan amid refinery troubles and ongoing overall strong summer demand.
Regional supplies elsewhere, however, remained sufficient as China’s oil majors are expecting to load more cargoes out for August compared with June and July given export margins and ready export quota availability.
Regrade narrowed slightly by around 10 cents week on week to close at a discount of 90 cents a barrel.
SINGAPORE CASH DEALS O/AS
– No deals for both fuels
INVENTORIES
– Independently held gasoline stocks in storage in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose by 3.1% in the week to Thursday, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.
REFINERY NEWS REF/OUT
– Motiva Enterprises was repairing a leak on the shut gasoline-producing fluidic catalytic cracker 3 (FCC-3) at its 626,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery on Thursday, said people familiar with plant operations.
NEWS
– Oil prices rose slightly on Friday but remained on track for a third straight week of declines due to weak demand in China, the world’s largest crude importer, and expectations of a ceasefire deal for the Gaza war and related violence in the Middle East.
– South Korea’s S-Oil 010950.KS, whose main shareholder is Saudi Aramco 2222.SE, on Friday forecast that third-quarter refining margins would rebound, spurred by peak summer season demand for transport fuel.
– Goldman Sachs GS.N said on Thursday that whoever wins the U.S. presidential election in November will have limited tools to significantly boost domestic oil supply next year.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Trixie Yap; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)