MRPL to delay 35,000 tons naphtha cargo shipment to SK Energy

16-Apr-12

India's Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) will delay shipment by a few days to a week, of 35,000 tons of naphtha to South Korea's top refiner, SK Energy, after it had to shut about two-thirds of its 150,000 bpd plant, as per Reuters. This delay coincides with a market scenario of healthy demand and tight supplies even before the outage, as India's exports for April were already at low levels of less than 730,000 tons, compared to a 2011 monthly average of 890,000 tons. SK Energy had bought two April cargoes from MRPL previously at premiums of US$38-39/ton to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis, of which one cargo was to be shipped on April 14-16 and the other on April 5-7. One cargo was unaffected as it already left the port in early April. Operations of MRPL, a subsidiary of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp., were hit as local authorities initially cut and then stopped water supply to the plant from the nearby Nethravathi river from Wednesday.