Asia naphtha falls $16.50/t on crude losses

13 May 2008 05:05  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Asian naphtha has fallen $16.50/tonne (€10.56/tonne) on bearish sentiment and losses in the western crude markets, industry sources said on Tuesday.

Second half June indications were pegged at $982.50-985.50/tonne CFR (cost and freight) Japan, first half July at $984-987/tonne and second half July at $985.50-988.50/tonne.

Asian naphtha broke historical record highs last week, by trading at $1,002 /tonne for the first half of July contract.

No trades were seen for the past two days as players kept out of the market in view of the outage at South Korea’s Yeochun Naphtha Cracking Centre (YNCC), which suddenly dampened market sentiment.

"The high prices of naphtha have been putting off end-users. Now, we have this outage situation which is further depressing the market," a source said.

US crude oil futures fell below $124 per barrel on Tuesday as active profit-taking kicked in following surges to record highs of over $126/barrel in the past week.

Gains in the naphtha markets which had earlier been strong, had slowed tremendously late last week. Asian naphtha gained 6.10% versus gains of 12.91% in the Brent crude markets since early May.

($1 = €0.64)

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By: Desmond Chia
+65 6780 4359

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