Singapore (Platts)--13Aug2012/435 am EDT/835 GMT

Asian gasoline cracks surged to their highest in three-and-a-half years Friday, driven largely by unplanned refinery outages amid seasonal peak demand.

The spread between benchmark Mean of Platts Singapore 92 RON gasoline and front-month September ICE Brent futures jumped $1.81/b from August 8 to be assessed at $15.06/b, its highest since February 16, 2009, when it was assessed at $15.48/b, Platts data showed.

The mid-octane MOPS 95 RON gasoline crack also soared $1.99/b to be assessed at $19.09/b, from its last high of $19.33/b on February 16, 2009. There was no publishing day in Singapore on August 9.

The Platts Market on Close assessment process saw Sietco buying two 50,000 barrels cargoes of 95 RON gasoline at $131.70/barrel and Phillips 66 at $131.70/b, following which Phillips 66's bid of $131.90/b at the 0830 GMT close of Asian trade failed to draw further selling interest.

For 92 RON, the highest price bids of $127.50/b from BP at close also failed to draw any sell interest, after BP bought a 92 RON cargo from SK Energy International at $126.80/b earlier in the MOC process.

The run-up in the gasoline market for both low- and mid-octane grades was primarily driven by unplanned refinery outages in Malaysia and Vietnam, resulting in a flurry of demand for prompt August to early-September cargoes -- at a time when the physical trade cycle has started to shift to September.

Vietnam's sole 6.5 million mt/year refinery at Dung Quat has been fully shut since August 3 for at least 14 days. With low inventories at hand, market sources said they expected the refinery to do limited or no term deliveries between now and end August -- leaving its term buyers scrambling for prompt August barrels.

So far, the shutdown has seen at least 127,000 mt of import demand for 92 RON and 95 RON for August to early-September emerge via tenders.

Additional prompt demand for August barrels of 95 RON was heard emerging from Malaysia, due to the unplanned shutdown of the 170,000 b/d Melaka II refinery -- which is a joint venture between state-owned Petronas and Phillips 66. The refinery is currently in the process of restarting, after the CDU was taken offline on August 3 due to a leak.

Supply within the Asian market is deemed chronically tight, given heavy refinery shutdowns in Northeast Asia and India and strong demand from the Middle East and the US Atlantic Coast, which draw Indian swing barrels away from Asia.

Other than the summer driving season, the Ramadan period and the Eid al-Fitri holidays later this month have also boosted gasoline consumption, particularly for Indonesia, which has secured close to 10 million barrels of 88 RON and 92 RON gasoline imports for August.

--Irene Tang, irene_tang@platts.com --Edited by James Leech, james_leech@platts.com

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