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US naphtha price gain narrows export arbitrage

  • Mercados: Oil products
  • 03/08/21

Strong naphtha prices at the US Gulf coast are squeezing arbitrage opportunities to Europe and Asia that had been prevalent through much of the year.

Heavy naphtha prices on the US Gulf coast rose on 30 July to 191.72¢/USG, an 8.6pc increase from a month earlier and the highest since October 2018.

The recent price gains caused at least three provisionally-booked export cargoes to fail over the past week, according to fixture reports.

The arbitrage has narrowed after several months of strong exports to Asia as well as to Europe. These exports had filled the gap in US domestic demand, particularly from refiners this summer. Demand for heavy naphtha as a reformer feedstock has been slow on the US Gulf coast as gasoline producers preferred to use low-sulphur grades of naphtha as a blendstock instead.

While the domestic demand picture has been little changed in the past few weeks, naphtha prices have surged along with the underlying pricing basis, Gulf coast conventional gasoline.

Gulf coast conventional gasoline prices rose at the end of July to $2.29/USG, the highest since 2014. Tighter gasoline supplies and the high cost of renewable fuel credits, knowns as RINs, embedded in gasoline prices helped push both Nymex futures as well as physical differentials higher in the gasoline market.

Rising gasoline prices on the US Gulf coast narrowed premiums in export destinations. European heavy naphtha prices fell at the end of July to $9.23/metric tonne (t) over the US Gulf coast, down from a $30.37/t premium at the end of June. Similarly, the Singapore heavy naphtha premium over the US Gulf coast shrank to $18.23/t at the end of July, down by $17/t from a month earlier.

US naphtha prices could stay strong through the next few months amid planned crude unit turnarounds in the fall. Several US Gulf coast refiners are expected to conduct crude unit maintenance in September and October, which would reduce naphtha production and keep prices high. On the other hand, the end of peak summer driving season could soften underlying gasoline prices.


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