Asia’s gasoline markets eased slightly on Thursday but were hovering near one-year highs, on expectations of tight supplies in key hubs like Japan and India.

The crack GL92-SIN-CRK slipped by $1.37 to $19.34 a barrel over Brent crude. At the window, series of bids by energy traders didn’t receive matching offers, resulting in no deals for the fuel.

In naphtha markets, South Korean trader SK Energy bought 25,000 tons of the oil product for second-half October delivery, market participants said. This was the first naphtha trade in August.

An India-based naphtha trader said an uptrend in prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) may prompt crackers to switch to cheaper naphtha next month.

Naphtha crack jumped by about $11 to $43.18 a metric ton over Brent crude on Thursday.

Japan’s Cosmo Oil, a unit of Cosmo Energy Holdings Co, shut down the 100,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Sakai refinery on Aug. 18 for planned maintenance, a company spokesperson said on Thursday.

The refinery in western Japan is scheduled to resume operations in early October, he said.

Japan’s biggest refiner Eneos Corp said on Thursday the crude distillation units (CDUs) at its Mizushima refinery in the western part of the country are operating normally after a fire the previous day.

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Singapore light distillates stocks fell 133,000 barrels to a five-month low of 12.766 million barrels in the week to Aug. 23, Enterprise Singapore data showed. O/SING1

U.S. gasoline stocks rose by 1.5 million barrels last week to 217.6 million barrels, the EIA said, compared with forecasts for a 900,000-barrel drop. EIA/S​
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Mohi Narayan; Editing by Varun H K)