Naphtha price, margin at 7 session highs on persistent demand and low supplies from India

22-Jan-13

Naphtha price in Asia as well as margins were at 7 session highs of US$973.50/ton and US$134.25/ton respectively on Monday on persistent demand and low supplies from India, as per Reuters. India's Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) will delay some of its January naphtha shipments due to logistics problems caused by an emergency shutdown of a secondary unit. It has already sold four cargoes of naphtha for January loading, of which three went to Total and one cargo to Petro-Diamond. It was not immediately clear if the earlier cargoes scheduled for Jan. 7-9 and Jan. 14-16 were affected. But the cargoes scheduled for lifting this week and next week will be delayed by a few days to a week, traders said. The delay is untimely as Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has limited cargoes in January following a fire at its storage terminal in Hazira. Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) has also cancelled selling a cargo due to domestic demand. South Korea's Samsung Total in the meantime bought around 25,000 tonnes of open-spec naphtha for H2-February delivery. The premiums were not immediately known although some traders had estimated the price to be about US$18.50-19/ton above Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis.