Asia Gasoline – Pricing Update – 18–22 May
- Singapore 92 RON cash differentials rose $1.93/bl w/w to $3.21/bl on 6 May
- Pertamina, Asia’s biggest oxy buyer, is back in the market — heard taking end-May 90 RON cargoes at MOPS 92 RON +$2/bl FOB Straits, reversing recent tender cancellations
- PMI also back on the buy side with Asia-to-Mexico arb open — lifted ~4 1H May-loading cargoes, seeking 2H May and early June.
- Elevated stocks in Asia and Australia continue to cap demand.
- Nghi Son offered mogas on open tender, signaling Vietnam is not supply-short.
- Korean and Japanese refiners running higher-than-expected, supported by SPR crude swaps giving flexibility on return timing and time-spread exposure.
- Thailand ending oil export ban adds to supply adequacy sentiment.
- China remains the key wildcard — officially weighing resumption of refined product exports but no volumes or timing confirmed.
- Blendstock prices fell w/w, gas-nap rose, but Asian blenders remain sidelined. Component shortages plus the time and capital cost of blending operations are seen as adding too much risk exposure in a highly volatile price environment.
About the Author
Carrie Ho, our Senior Pricing Analyst at Sparta Commodities, brings nearly 15 years of experience across global energy and metals markets, with a particular focus on oil and LNG benchmarks. Before joining Sparta, Carrie was Associate Journalism Director at OPIS by Dow Jones, where she led energy and commodities coverage and honed her understanding of how political and economic forces drive market structure and price dynamics. She now applies this expertise to Sparta’s pricing assessments, helping clients navigate increasingly complex physical and derivatives markets.
About Sparta
Founded in 2020, Sparta made waves in the commodity analytics space in March 2022 when it secured a $6m series A investment from Singular. This success then later snowballed into a further $17.5 million in a series A funding round led by the technology venture capital firm FirstMark, with participation from existing shareholder, Singular.
The platform, created by former traders Miles Moseley and Felipe Elink Schuurman, is designed to answer a common problem shared by most traders: 90% of pricing data required to make trading decisions is kept in silos and shared manually by voice, email, or chat.
Sparta breaks these existing data silos and combines the physical and paper markets to provide traders with live access to global raw prices, from futures and swaps to forward freight and physical premiums. We work with clients globally, including Philips 66, Chevron, Trafigura, Equinor and more.
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