Naphtha market in Asia continues to rebound, cracks edging up

09-Dec-11

Naphtha market in Asia continues its rebound as cracks edged upwards on Thursday. Naphtha cracks for H1-January inched up by 55 cents to US$90.48/ton, as per Reuters, supported by planned plant turnarounds in the Middle East and expected buying from Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemicals. Asia's top naphtha buyer Formosa is expected to return to the spot market and buy large volumes after months as outages at its refinery and cracking complex have been partially resolved. Some players opine that a rebound in naphtha into backwardation was more a correction in the market rather than fundamentals. Asia's December swaps were US$22.25 higher than Northwest European prices. The price for front-month H2-January open spec naphtha fell to US$917.50/ton.