SINGAPORE- Asia's naphtha crack fell to a two-week low of $82.08 a tonne while gasoline's premium to Brent hit a five-session low of $2.01 a barrel on Monday.
- The use of alternative liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) has displaced a small portion of naphtha recently, industry sources said.
- LPG can replaced between 5 and 15% of naphtha in some of Asia's naphtha crackers.
- Petrochemical makers buy spot LPG cargoes from time to time to supplement some of their term supplies.
- This takes place when LPG prices in the spot market is at least $50 a tonne lower than naphtha.
* AMPLE STOCKS: Gasoline stocks held independently at the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) refining and storage hub rose to a two-week high of 1.29 million tonnes in the week to July 9, according to data from Dutch consultancy Insights Global.
- This was 8% below the record high gasoline volumes in ARA on June 11, the data showed.
- High gasoline inventories were also seen in Singapore in the week to July 8.
* OTHER NEWS: A fire broke out at a facility belonging to the Shahid Tondgooyan Petrochemical Company in southwest Iran but was quickly contained, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday, citing a local official.
(Reporting by Seng Li Peng; Editing by Rashmi Aich) ((lipeng.seng@thomsonreuters.com ; +65 6870 3086; Reuters Messaging: lipeng.seng.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
