Asia’s naphtha refining profit margin logged more than a 200% decline in June amid slow demand from petrochemical units and weakening butane prices, traders and analysts said.

On the last trading day of the month, the crack rose by $8.52 to minus $26.63 a metric ton over Brent crude but continued to trade in the negative territory.

At the Singapore trading window, Shell’s international trading arm bought 25,000 tons of first-half September naphtha.

There were a series of gasoline trades for a second straight session. A total of 300,000 barrels of the fuel changed hands at the deals window.

The gasoline crack rose to $12.45 a barrel over Brent crude on Friday, compared with $12.38 on Wednesday. Gasoline margin registered a gain of about 8% this month on robust summer diving season demand.

Singapore markets were closed on Thursday on account of a public holiday.

INVENTORIES ARA/ O/SING1 FUJAIRAH/

Gasoline stocks held in independent storage in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub were up 2.6% to 1.344 million tons in the week to Thursday, data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global showed.

Napththa stocks fell 16.9% to 241,000 million tons with more product going into the gasoline blending pool and amid delays in discharging as vessels are waiting two to four days to discharge.

Singapore inentories of light distillates fell by 105,000 barrels to a nearly six-month low of 14.626 million barrels in the week to June 27, Enterprise Singapore data showed.

Light distillate stockpiles at the Fujairah commercial hub declined by 331,000 barrels to a two-week low of 7.098 million barrels in the week to June 26, according to data from S&P Global Commodity Insights.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Mohi Narayan; Editing by Sonia Cheema)