Adgas sells rare spot naphtha at premium

Singapore: UAE's Adgas sold 25,000 tonnes of rare spot naphtha for August 19-15 loading at a low single-digit premium to its own price formula, coming at a time when Middle East spot barrels have been exceptionally high, traders said yesterday.

Traders added that ADGAS could be affected by term volumes reduction from its buyers, and is forced to sell them in the spot market like other Middle Eastern suppliers.

"Nobody wants to sell naphtha in today's climate if they have an option," said a trader.

High premiums

Saudi Aramco, Qatar's Tasweeq, Kuwait Petroleum Corp and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) are pouring their barrels into the spot market after some of their term buyers decided either to drop the contracts or reduce their volumes because of high premiums.

Tasweeq has in this week sold 100,000 tonnes of naphtha for August loading, while Saudi Aramco offered another 55,000 tonnes of naphtha to be co-loaded from Yanbu and Jeddah in end July to early August. In early July it sold 55,000 tonnes of naphtha co-loading from these two ports as well as a 50,000-tonne cargo from Jubail.

Bahrain's Bapco is also selling 50,000 tonnes of spot naphtha for September 1-4 loading in a tender that closed yesterday

Middle Eastern suppliers have tended not to sell spot barrels in the past. The shift in sales patterns and the shutdown of Formosa's 700,000 tonne-per-year (tpy) cracker last week, have driven cracks to their lowest in more than a year.