As international crude benchmarks kept soaring recently and Brent exceeded US$110/bbl this week, many Asian refineries were apt to lift base oil prices, revealed a market player.
Sinopec planned to lift base oil prices for underlying lubricant plants by Yuan 400/mt in March, revealed a company source.
Refineries subsidiary to PetroChina would mark up base oil ex-refinery prices by Yuan 300-400/mt in the near term, following the price-hike plan of Yuan 200-300/mt by one of its key refineries, Dalian Petrochemical, as C1 had reported earlier.
On the import market, March CFR China prices were US$70-80/mt higher than February, revealed a source with a South Korean refinery. "We previously planned to lift CFR China prices by US$50-70/mt for March cargoes, however, in view of the ever-increasing crude prices, we carried out greater markups," he said.
Meanwhile, ExxonMobil verbally announced to lift Group I and Group II base oil ex-refinery prices by US$50/mt in Asian and Pacific areas as from mid March, C1 learned.
C1 estimated Asian base oil prices would keep going up in March and might reach similarly peak level in 2008 in April, underpinned by soaring crude benchmarks and short supplies amid clustered refinery maintenance in Asia.
