Asian naphtha price rose to a one-week high on Tuesday, cracks touched a five-session high and intermonth contango narrowed for the second straight-session despite the weak fundamentals, as per Reuters. The higher cracks could be a sheer reflection of a technically shut West-East window. Sinking crack values will compel sellers to look outside of the Far East.
Demand from Taiwan has been impacted as CPC shut the largest of its three crackers due to Typhoon Fanapi, amid high stockpiles since July. Formosa is also likely to shut a 1.03 mln tpa cracker in early October for a planned maintenance even if its 700,000 tpa No. 1 unit fails to resume operations by then. The No. 1 cracker was idled in early July following a fire. South Korean buyers were away for mid-autumn festival holidays.
22-Sep-10 
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