Corrected: Aramco offers naphtha, prompts cracker delay talk

14 September 2007 06:26  [Source: ICIS news]

Correction: In the ICIS news story headlined "Aramco offers naphtha, prompts cracker delay talk" dated 14 September 2007, please read in the second paragraph as "...Jubail Chevron Phillips 300,000 tonne/year cracker..." instead of "...Saudi Chevron Phillips 1.2m tonne/year cracker…” A corrected story follows.

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Saudi Arabian Oil Co (Aramco) is offering term naphtha for October loading until March 2008, prompting talk that start-up of a new cracker in Al Jubail may be delayed to the first quarter of next year, traders said on Friday.

The naphtha supplies from Aramco would have been set aside for the Jubail Chevron Phillips' 300,000 tonne/year cracker, a US-Arabian joint venture company, traders said.

Aramco officials could not be reached for immediate for comment.

Aramco, the biggest Middle East naphtha supplier to Asia, offered it’s A-180 naphtha grade at a lower premium of $16-17/tonne premium to the Aramco formula, compared with its previous term price of $25/tonne premium concluded with some Asian buyers in July.

“The lower premiums could attract more Asian buyers to consider taking Saudi term naphtha once again,” a trader based in Tokyo said.

“There could be 30,000-40,000 bbl/day worth of naphtha surplus in the market so we are not concerned about tight supplies yet,” said a southeast Asian cracker operator on the delay of the Saudi cracker.

Aramco’s term naphtha contracts typically would be from January to June and July to December.

Earlier this year, a handful of Aramco’s term buyers had either terminated their contracts or reduce their Saudi naphtha supplies due to high premiums, traders said.

Apart from Aramco, other key suppliers of naphtha from the Middle East to Asia are Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co and Bahrain Petroleum.

By: Nurul Darni
65 6789 4359

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