India's BPCL withdraws two naphtha offers on non viable bids

31-Oct-08

Owing to the curtailment in naphtha cracker runs in by Asian petrochem firms, the demand for naphtha has deeply weakened. This situation has led to India's state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) to withdraw offers to vend two 30,000 ton parcels (total 60,000 tons) due to non viable bids. The company called off an offer for naphtha parcel for Nov 23-Nov 27 loading, and another for Dec 20-Dec 25 lifting. Impacted by extremely slackening margins, leading petrochem makers in the region including Formosa (Taiwan) and SK Energy (South Korea) had decided to take their crackers off steam. Others like Mitsubishi Chemical (Japan) and others had announced cuts in the naphtha runs.