GASOLINE

The differential for MR-size cargoes of 92RON gasoline on an FOB Northeast Asia basis was pushed down after they had been overvalued. On June 22, China National Offshore Oil Co (CNOOC) sold two MR-size cargoes of 92RON gasoline loading on Jul 20-21 at a premium of around 25cts/bbl to Singapore quotations on an FOB basis. The company also issued a sell tender for an MR-size cargo of 92RON gasoline loading on Jul 30-31 on June 25. The tender was scheduled to close on Jun 26. Meanwhile, no fresh purchases were heard from Southeast Asia including Vietnam and Indonesia.

NAPHTHA

Procurements of naphtha for August delivery continued in the Northeast Asia spot market. A trader in Northeast Asia pointed out that end-users were increasing their spot purchases to fill their necessary volumes as traders were shifting to trade minimum volumes to hedge risks. In the Asian petrochemical market, prices for ethylene stayed firm in part because the inflows of ethylene from the US were declining and supply in Asia was tight. However, inflows in Asia in the second half of July were expected to increase again. Therefore, prices were said to be softening again, and that could capped naphtha prices as feedstock of ethylene.

MIDDLE DISTILLATES

The differential for SR-size cargoes of 0.001% sulfur gasoil on an FOB South Korea basis was up on expectations that demand would pick up. There seemed to be movements to procure cheap cargoes from South Korea. On the back of the movements, some sellers in South Korea were said to have raised their selling ideas to a premium of around $1.50/bbl to Singapore quotations on an FOB basis. In Japan, truck prices of gasoil were expected to increase. JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy and Idemitsu Kosan both would raise their wholesale price that would be applied from Jun 25 by 1,000 yen/kl from the previous day. In addition, due to the recent upward trend in crude oil market, it was pointed out that the both refiners were possibly going to raise the wholesale price that would be applied from Jul 2 by around 2,000 yen/kl.

FUEL OIL

The differential for MR-size cargoes of 0.5% sulfur fuel oil on an FOB South Korea basis was unchanged. Refiners in South Korea slightly shrunk the production cuts as refining margins were improving. Hyundai Oilbank seemed to have raised the operation rate of its refinery to close to 90%. SK Energy was scheduled to finish regular maintenance of a vacuum residual desulfurization unit at the end of June, and would raise operation rates of its refinery in July. Supply of 0.5％S sulfur fuel oil as cutter stocks of VLSFO was expected to increase. In the meantime, a refiner in South Korea said that refiners in the country were possibly going to lower operation rates at their refineries again as crack margins of oil products would worse amid increasing crude oil prices.

Asia-products(Japanese) report sample

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