Asia naphtha rises to $956.50/t on crude gains

21 April 2008 05:15  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Asian naphtha prices hit another record high with the second half of June contract trading at $956.50/tonne on strong gains in the crude markets, according to ICIS pricing data on Monday.

The contract was traded late Friday on a CFR (cost and freight) basis Japan, as Itochu sold to Shell.

On 16 April, the contract had breached $942/tonne CFR Japan, when Shell sold to Trafigura and Sempra to BP. Glencore also sold the same contract at $940/tonne to Trafigura.

The gains in the naphtha markets still lagged behind gains in the crude oil markets last week as naphtha rose by 3.27% as against a gain of 3.37% in the Brent crude markets.

Crude crossed the $115/barrel mark last week and was testing the $117/barrel mark.  

The naphtha market remained weak due to lacklustre demand from northeast (NE) Asian end-users as most of them had covered their May nominations and were waiting for prices to soften before seeking for June cargoes.

The inter-month backwardation in the Asian naphtha market continued to crunch due to weak demand from NE Asian end-users, industry sources said on Monday.

The inter-month spreads between second half of May/second half of June was seen at $3/tonne on Thursday, against $5/tonne last week. It crunched to $1/tonne towards the end of last week.

By: Desmond Chia
+65 6780 4359

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