Japan's largest refiner JX Nippon Oil & Energy has settled its January-March low sulfur and high sulfur fuel oil prices with industrial customers around 22%-28% lower than October-December prices, documents obtained by Platts showed Monday.
The quarter-on-quarter price drop was due to lower crude import costs and strengthening of the yen against the US dollar.
JX settled the Q1 price of LSFO at Yen 35,310/kl ($47.35/b), down 22.4% from the Q4 settled price of Yen 45,500/kl, according to the documents.
The Q1 HSFO price was settled at Yen 28,850/kl ($38.69/b), down 27.5% from the Q4 settled price of Yen 39,800/kl, the documents showed.
The company typically finalizes quarterly fuel oil prices on a retroactive basis following negotiations with term buyers.
It also settled on a dollar-yen exchange rate of 118.55 for January-March, compared with 121.03 for October-December.
JX's fuel oil prices are used as benchmarks by industrial buyers in Japan.
HSFO sold by the refiner contains a maximum sulfur content of 3%, while its LSFO has a maximum sulfur content of 0.3%.
The prices are on a delivered basis to Tokyo Bay and payment is due 60 days after delivery.
