Asia’s gasoline spot activity on the trading window stayed upbeat on Friday, with the pace of discussions still maintaining momentum, though margins fell week-on-week.

Octane-92 refining margins fell by almost $3 from last Friday’s close, to around $10.4 a barrel. These levels were still near a three-month low.

Traders were expecting some China oil majors to start offering January spot cargoes following the issuance of export quotas for next year.

So far for January, China’s exports of gasoline were expected at 400,000-600,000 metric tons – slightly higher than a month earlier – despite narrow export margins.

Naphtha markets, meanwhile, were still lacking on window deals, though discussion levels rose slightly from the previous close.

Refining margins (NAF-SIN-CRK) inched up slightly to around $80 per metric ton from the previous session, but they were little changed week-on-week.

Intermonth spreads, however, barely moved through the course of the week.

NEWS

– Russia has almost doubled exports of liquefied petroleum gas in January – November to ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia and Afghanistan to 1.016 million metric tons, industry sources told Reuters on Friday.

– China has issued 19 million tons of export quotas for refined fuels including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the first batch of such allowances for 2026, three trade sources familiar with the matter said late on Wednesday.

– The White House has ordered U.S. military forces to focus almost exclusively on enforcing a “quarantine” of Venezuelan oil for at least the next two months, a U.S. official told Reuters, indicating Washington is currently more interested in using economic rather than military means to pressure Caracas.

– India’s Reliance Industries Ltd continues to receive oil cargoes supplied by Rosneft after obtaining a one-month concession from Washington, which had imposed sanctions on the Russian producer, two sources familiar with the matter said.

REFINERY NEWS

– Japan’s biggest refiner, Eneos Corp, said on Thursday that it plans to shut the 128,000 barrels-per-day crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Marifu refinery in western Japan from mid-January to early April for scheduled maintenance.

INVENTORIES

– Singapore’s light distillates stocks fell to a three-week low of 14.69 million barrels in the week to December 24, official government data showed.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS

– Two gasoline deals, no naphtha deal
Source: Reuters