Stronger demand from Indian buyers, who turned to importing from Northeast Asia in view of limited domestic supply, boosted January offers by Asian suppliers, according to an international trader. Most Indian base oil refineries cut utilizations recently, resulting in base oil output reduction in the country, he said.
Group I base oil offers for January jumped up US$50-80/mt, many base oil suppliers in Japan and Taiwan told C1. Supplies to China would be scarce because more cargoes would be transferred to India, they said.
As for Group II grades, January quotations to China went up as well, according to sources from Asian base oil suppliers.
"We hiked January offers to China by over US$40/mt," a source with a South Korea's Yosu-based Group II leading supplier told C1. "If Chinese importers could not accept the higher offers, we could sell our resources to India," he explained. "Buying interests from India kept keen, although we had marked up January offers to the country by US$60-80/mt," he added.
Another South Korean Group II base oil supplier based in the southern part of the country also revealed to C1 about similar markups to China.
As a consequence of joint markups, prices of imported base oils might still go up next month in China, although January was traditionally the off-season of lubricant consumption and domestic supplies would become ampler with resources from Taiwan Formosa Petrochemical Corp, estimated a Chinese trader.
Group I base oil offers for January jumped up US$50-80/mt, many base oil suppliers in Japan and Taiwan told C1. Supplies to China would be scarce because more cargoes would be transferred to India, they said.
As for Group II grades, January quotations to China went up as well, according to sources from Asian base oil suppliers.
"We hiked January offers to China by over US$40/mt," a source with a South Korea's Yosu-based Group II leading supplier told C1. "If Chinese importers could not accept the higher offers, we could sell our resources to India," he explained. "Buying interests from India kept keen, although we had marked up January offers to the country by US$60-80/mt," he added.
Another South Korean Group II base oil supplier based in the southern part of the country also revealed to C1 about similar markups to China.
As a consequence of joint markups, prices of imported base oils might still go up next month in China, although January was traditionally the off-season of lubricant consumption and domestic supplies would become ampler with resources from Taiwan Formosa Petrochemical Corp, estimated a Chinese trader.
