Market and product
Asia’s naphtha tumbles on hefty overnight crude losses
SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Asia’s naphtha prices opened sharply lower on Friday morning, triggered by steep losses in global crude futures overnight, traders said.
Open-spec first-half August contract fell by $16.50-17.50/tonne (€12.54-13.30/tonne) from Thursday to $851.50-854.50/tonne CFR (cost & freight) Japan, ICIS data showed.
The July NYMEX light sweet crude contract finished down by $2.84/bbl to $95.40/bbl on Thursday, while London Brent crude futures for August spiralled down by $3.97/bbl to $102.15/bbl, the data showed.
A strong dollar and a selloff in global stock markets had sparked off the losses in crude futures, according to market players.
Fundamentally, the Asian naphtha market is getting bearish amid excess cargo availabilities resulting from huge western deep-sea inflows, traders said.
Poor gasoline blending in Europe led to surplus bookings of naphtha supplies to Asia, they added.
Naphtha is also used as a gasoline blending component, apart from being a dominant cracker feedstock in Asia.
($1 = €0.76)
