Open-spec naphtha for front-month H1-August was at US$732/ton in Asia, while margins were 20.5% lower at US$18.15/ton premium. Naphtha price in Asia lingered near a 21 month low on Wednesday while margins dived to a four-session low on news that Asia's top naphtha buyer has shut its entire 2.93 mln tpa cracking complex, as per Reuters.
Formosa Petrochemical operates three naphtha crackers in Mailiao. Its 700,000 tpa No 1 unit was already shut on June 19 for a 40 day planned maintenance, while an outage has caused its 1.03 mln tpa No 2 and 1.2 mln tpa No 3 crackers to shut. The shutdown comes at a time when the market is flooded with spot naphtha due to failure by Middle Eastern suppliers Saudi Aramco, Kuwait and ADNOC to fully tie up their term cargoes.
21-Jun-12 
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