Coaster butane cargoes in Northwest Europe are finding buying interest from the petrochemicals sector, according to industry sources.
Following the change from winter-grade gasoline to summer-grade, less butane is being blended into gasoline, resulting in refineries in Northwest Europe having more surplus butane available for export.
"There is a steady flow of product," said one industry source.
Most of this additional butane is exported as coaster cargoes of 1,000-3,000 mt in size.
Butane can be used an an alternative feedstock to naphtha by petrochemicals companies, providing the delivered butane price is below the delivered naphtha price.
SABIC, Fina and Dow have all been reported to be buyers of coaster butane cargoes, with CIF prices for good quality product said by sources to be at around 95% of CIF naphtha.
Although the bulk of the coaster butane supply is being absorbed into the petrochemicals sector, there is also some demand for product to be used in the production of MTBE, with the occasional cargo going into gasoline blending.
With solid buying interest from petrochemicals companies, CIF values for coaster butane have been fairly steady over the last few weeks.
Based on Platts data, spot prices were just over $1.020/mt at the beginning of March and only $10/mt weaker by the end of the month, before reaching a last published level Thursday of $1,002.5/mt.
