Asia Gasoline/Naphtha-Gasoline crack recovers; Essar cuts supplies

SINGAPORE, April 17 (Reuters) - The Asian gasoline crack

recovered from a week's low on Thursday to reach a two-session

high of $10.50 a barrel, or 13.27 percent higher than a month

ago, as an outage in India impacted supplies.

Essar Oil (BSE: ESSAROIL.BO - news) has reduced its gasoline output due to a

technical problem at a continuous catalytic reformer (CCR), a

company spokesman said, adding that it will take about a

fortnight to resolve the technical issue.

"Because of this, our gasoline production will be impacted,"

he added.

Traders said Essar had, before the outage, sold two gasoline

cargoes totalling at least 110,000 tonnes for April loading. One

of the cargoes went to BP (LSE: BP.L - news) for April 18-19 loading and

another for April 26-28 loading to Vitol.

They added that the cargo sold to BP will be delayed by

weeks, but it was unclear if Vitol's cargo will be affected.

Ten gasoline deals totalling 500,000 barrels were transacted

in the Singapore cash market, five times the volumes done in the

previous session. (See Singapore cash deals below)

NAPHTHA FLAT

Asia's naphtha crack was mostly flat at $135.88 a tonne, or

nearly 8 percent higher than what it was a month ago as current

tighter supplies supported sellers' sentiment.

The strong fundamentals were reflected in the recent spot

deals done, with the latest on Reliance Industries.

The Indian refiner sold a long-range vessel size naphtha

cargo for May 15-20 loading from Sikka at premiums in the high

$30s a tonne level to Middle East quotes on a free-on-board

(FOB) basis, traders said on Thursday.

They added that the buyer could be an oil major, but this

could not be directly confirmed. The last time Reliance received

high $30s a tonne was for a January 2014 lifting cargo.

"Although European cargoes being fixed for May arrival in

Asia could be higher than what was initially expected, Asia's

inventories are still comparatively low due to strong demand,"

said a Singapore-based trader.

Traders said cargoes arriving in Asia from Europe and the

Mediterranean may have increased to about 1.3 million tonnes,

from an earlier expectations of up to 1 million tonnes.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS: Twelve deals, of which two were on

naphtha and ten on gasoline.

BP bought two 92-octane gasoline cargoes for May 7-11

loading at $119.90 a barrel each from Trafigura and Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX - news) .

The oil major bought another 92-octane gasoline cargo from

Trafigura for May 13-17 loading at $119.70 a barrel.

Vitol bought a 92-octane gasoline cargo for May 13-17

loading from Glencore at $119.80 a barrel and from Trafigura a

similar grade cargo for May 7-11 loading at $119.90 a barrel.

Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) bought two 95-octane gasoline cargoes, one of which

was from PetroChina for May 9-13 loading at $123.40 a barrel and

the other from Unipec for May 8-12 loading at $123.50 a barrel.

Unipec bought two 92-octane gasoline cargoes from Trafigura

for May 7-11 loading at $119.90 a barrel and $120.00 a barrel

respectively.

Glencore sold to PetroChina a 92-octane gasoline cargo for

May 13-17 loading at $120.00 a barrel.

On naphtha, BP inked a first-half June/first-half July

spread deal with buyer Shell at $17 a tonne.

Shell also bought a second-half June naphtha cargo from

Vitol at $948 a tonne.

LIGHT DISTILLATES

CASH ($/T) ASIA CLOSE Change % Change Prev RIC

Close

OSN Naphtha CFR Japan M1 956.75 -2.00 -0.21 958.75 (NAF-1H-TYO)

OSN Naphtha CFR Japan M2 939.75 -2.13 -0.23 941.88 (NAF-2H-TYO)

OSN Naphtha Diff 17.00 0.00 0.00 17.00 (NAF-TYO-DIF)

Naphtha Netback FOB Sing 104.17 -0.19 -0.18 104.36 (NAF-SIN)

Naphtha Diff FOB Sing 2.89 -0.02 -0.69 2.91 (NAF-SIN-DIF)

Naphtha-Brent Crack 135.88 0.70 0.52 135.18 (NAF-SIN-CRK)

Gasoline 97 124.50 0.50 0.40 124.00 (GL97-SIN)

Gasoline 95 123.45 0.85 0.69 122.60 (GL95-SIN)

Gasoline 92 119.95 0.55 0.46 119.40 (GL92-SIN)

Gasoline crack 10.50 0.91 9.49 9.59 (GL92-SIN-CRK)

For a list of derivatives prices, including margins, please

double click the RICs below.

Brent M1

Naphtha CFR Japan M1

Naphtha CFR Japan M1/M2

Naphtha CFR Japan M2

Naphtha Japan-Sing Netback M1

Naphtha Japan-Sing Netback M2

Naphtha FOB Sing M1

Naphtha FOB Sing M1/M2

Naphtha FOB Sing M2

Naphtha Cracks M1

East-West Naphtha M1

East-West Naphtha M2

NWE Naphtha M1

NWE Naphtha M1/M2

NWE Naphtha M2

Crack NWE Naphtha-Brent M1

Crack NWE Naphtha-Brent M2

*Sing refers to Singapore

(Reporting by Seng Li Peng; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)