Asia’s naphtha market strengthened on Monday amid a drop in inbound supplies for the month, with refining margins within touching distance to positive territory for the first time in over two years.

The crack rose $7.32 to $112.45 per metric ton over Brent crude.

Sluggish outflows from the region’s top two naphtha exporters drove the regional drop in supplies, with India and South Korean volumes both pegged at around 200,000 mt each to date. Cargoes from Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Pakistan rounded off the rest of the confirmed flows at 200,000-300,000 metric tons (mt), an LSEG report said.

Robust Middle Eastern arrivals helped soften the downside in overall supplies, with volumes stepping higher over the past week to 3.5-3.6 million mt, the report added.

The gasoline crack rose to $4.14 per barrel above Brent crude from $3.75 on Friday, as 450,000 barrels of the benchmark grade of gasoline traded.

RGES emerged as the biggest buyer at the end of the trade window, snapping up 250,000 barrels of 92-octane gasoline.

NEWS

Oil prices rose amid expectations of a U.S. interest-rate cut this week, though gains were capped by persistent demand worries and weaker China data. Brent crude futures LCOc1 for November were up 38 cents at $71.99 a barrel. U.S. crude futures CLc1 for October were up 49 cents at $69.14 a barrel.

China’s oil refinery output in August fell 6.2% from a year earlier, official data showed on Saturday, declining for the fifth month as disappointing fuel demand and weak export margins curbed production. Refiners processed 59.07 million mt of crude oil last month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

Russia’s Urals crude oil price rose on Friday above the $60/barrel limit imposed by Western nations as the Brent price climbed back after a dramatic fall earlier this week.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Haridas; Editing by Shreya Biswas)