South Korea's Lotte Daesan Petrochemical has shelved its 2009 contract with Saudi Aramco for 150,000 tons of naphtha, in favour of better offers from other sellers. Lotte Daesan, set to merge with Honam Petrochemical Corp on Jan. 1, did not renew a contract to buy the A180 grade at US$5/ton premium to Aramco's price formula, on free-on-board basis for 2009 lifting. Instead, it bought a total 500,000 tons of open-spec and full-range naphtha for March-December 2009 arrival at a discount of US$4-7/ton to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight.
Interestingly, many key term lifters of Saudi naphtha, continued with the renewal of the contracts, including Formosa Petrochemical Corp, Taiwan's CPC Corp, Titan Chemicals Corp, trading houses Marubeni Corp, Itochu, Hanwha Corp and Daelim Corp.
02-Jan-09 
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