Gasoline: Refineries troubles continue in Japan

The differentials for MR-size cargos of 92RON gasoline on an FOB Northeast Asia basis were　unchanged. Most refiners in Northeast Asia had yet to fix their export plans in March. Meanwhile, some refineries' troubles were taking place in Japan, and it was unclear how many cargoes would be exported from the country in March. ENEOS seems to have some troubles besides its 172,000b/d Kawasaki refinery. Thus, the company was likely to be delaying some of February loading cargoes to March. PetroChina was also said to forward its plan to export a cargo from Mizushima loading in March. In the spot market, Formosa Petrochemicals Co (FPCC) in Taiwan closed a tender to sell 500,000bbl of 92RON gasoline loading in early March, but the results of the tender were still unknown. CPC Co resumed the operations of the 100,000b/d crude distillation unit at its 200,000b/d Taoyuan refinery by Friday. The company was raising its crude throughput and seemed to have some spot cargoes for sale loading in March.

Naphtha: Enough sales volume leads prices down

The second half March open-spec naphtha prices on a CFR Japan basis slightly went down. Enough sales volume led the prices down. Japan's Maruzen Petrochemical conducted a buy tender for 25,000mt of open-spec for delivery in the first half April and set a benchmark for counting to the Japan quotations during Feb 7-15. The awarded price was heard to be at around flat. LG Chem in South Korea bought naphtha for delivery in the second half March at a premium of about $5/mt to the quotations to be assessed 30 days before on a CFR basis on Thursday. According to sources, available cargoes for sales were not short and there were still no sense of tight supply/demand fundamentals. However, a price decline was only marginal as demand for a gasoline raw material was expected to increase in advance.

Middle distillates: FPCC sells early Mar jet cargo with premium level

The differential for MR-size cargoes of jet fuel on an FOB North East Asia basis went up. Formosa Petrochemicals Co (FPCC) in Taiwan sold 300,000bbl loading on Mar 5-9 via a tender at a premium range to the quotations on an FOB basis. The buyer seemed to be a trader. The buyer was said to bring the volume either to Australia or New Zealand with other volumes, which were also supplied from FPCC as term one. However, Possibility emerged that Japanese refiners might reduce imports from March onwards. As a result, supply/demand fundamentals in Northeast Asia were expected to slacken.

The differential for MR-size cargoes of 0.001% sulfur gasoil on an FOB North East Asia basis strengthened with an expectation that supply would decrease going forward. CPC Co in Taiwan closed a sell tender for 300,000bbl of 0.001% sulfur gasoil loading on Mar 16-22. In Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, several refineries planned regular maintenance of crude distillation units or secondary units. In addition, the operation rates of refineries would likely be reduced as refining margins would be capped with a rise in premiums for crude oil.

Fuel oil: NW Asia's prices tumble on prospects of ample supply

　The differential for MR-size cargoes of 0.5% sulfur fuel oil on an FOB North East Asia went down with ample supplies expected moving forward. The Asia market including China was experiencing a chronic loss of appetite for 0.5%S fuel oil, whereas the Middle East, Africa and so on shipped more cargoes of low sulfur fuel oil (LSFO) to Asia. On top of that, some oil companies were probably forced to ship LSFO by cargoes since South Korea saw stagnant demand for bunker fuel these days, a market source pointed out.