Vitol is loading up to 65,000 mt of open specification naphtha out of Northwest Europe via ship-to-ship operations for the US this week, as per Platts. 30,000 mt of naphtha was loaded on Monday via STS operations in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp area onto the CPO Italy clean tanker for New York Harbor. Vitol also intends to load 35,000 mt this week via STS operations on board the Horizon Theano out of ARA for the US Gulf Coast, as per a source.
The company has been buying heavily since early February in the Platts CIF Northwest Europe naphtha Market on Close assessment process this year. Typically around 350,000 mt has traded monthly in the MOC process since the start of 2012. The Vitol company source confirmed that the 65,000 mt it planned to send this week to the US was made up of open specification naphtha purchased in the Platts CIF NWE naphtha MOC process. The source said the company was moving the product to the US following the recent uptick in the NYMEX RBOB futures January contract. Naphtha flows from Europe to the US price off RBOB futures.
12-Dec-12 
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