SINGAPORE: Asia’s naphtha crack rose to a two-session high of $83.40 a tonne on Wednesday after declining to a five-month low in the previous session.

But fundamentals remained weak as high supplies weighed on the market.

Strong demand that came from Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, China and South Korea this week could not turn the tide.

Sellers offloaded cargoes this week to South Korean and Japanese buyers at premium levels mostly at between $6 and $6.50 a tonne level to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight basis, the lowest seen since October.

Singapore’s PCS paid a single-digit premium for naphtha scheduled for first-half March delivery but exact levels were not known, traders said.

PCS was looking to buy either a 25,000-tonne or 50,000-tonne cargo, they added.

South Korea’s KPIC restarted an 800,000-tonne-per-year (tpy) cracker on Wednesday after it was briefly shut earlier in the day due to minor glitches.

Asia’s gasoline crack, similar to naphtha, was at a two-session high of $7.97 a barrel, but supplies remained ample, with high supplies coming from China.

December gasoline exports from China, for example, reached a new high of 1.23 million tonnes, surpassing the previous record of 1.1 million tonnes in June 2016.

This year, China has set it first batch of quotas for oil product exports higher than the first lot last year.

Gasoline stocks in the United States were also building up in the last few weeks.

Analysts forecast that stockpiles of US gasoline rose 2.5 million barrels last week.

Operations have been completely halted at Venezuela’s 645,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Amuay refinery as state-owned PDVSA decided to stop operations at two crude units which were not scheduled to undergo maintenance.—Reuters