Asia’s gasoline markets inched higher on Wednesday as Fujairah stocks fell, but gains remained capped amid little buying interest at the Singapore window and a rise in U.S. stocks.

The crack stood at $13 a barrel, up from $12.90 a barrel in the last session.

At the Singapore trade window, there were two offers each for the benchmark 92-octange grade and the higher 95-octane grade of the fuel but there were no bids resulting in no deals, market participants said.

A Singapore-based gasoline trader said that the correction in markets made sense as the “margin was seasonally too high.”

TENDERS

Kuwait’s KPC, India’s BPCL and Nayara Energy offered February-loading gasoline in export tenders keeping supplies ample in the markets, sources said.

South Korea’s GS Caltex sought March-delivery heavy full-range naphtha in a tender that closed on Jan. 31.

INVENTORIES

Light distillate stocks at the Fujairah commercial hub declined by 113,000 barrels to 6.976 million barrels in the week to Jan. 30, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.

U.S. gasoline inventories rose by a bigger-than-expected 2.7 million barrels.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS

One naphtha trade, no gasoline deals.
Source: Reuters