As sources pegged the US benzene spot market Friday mid-morning at 392 cents/gal FOB USG for September, the benzene-to-crude ratio rose to 1.8905 after sliding for six days.
Previously, the ratio had been depressing steadily from 1.9904 August 24 to 1.8675 Thursday, according to Platts data.
By 11:00 AM CDT, October NYMEX crude futures had moved down $1.84/barrel to $87.09/barrel.
September offers opened the day Friday at 399 cents/gal FOB USG and dropped to 396 cents/gal FOB USG by time of publication. September bids started at 385 cents/gal FOB USG and moved up to 390 cents/gal over the same time period.
When asked Friday why benzene has not followed crude down as much as recent days, a producer said, "Maybe [it's] just reaction time. I'm sure a lot of players are taking extended weekends." The US Labor Day holiday is on Monday, September 5.
He added, "Benzene has been hovering in the 1.9 [benzene-to-crude ratio] level for a while, anyway."
The benzene-to-crude ratio was shown by Platts to be consistently above 1.9 for all of August until Tuesday, when it was at 1.8896.
