Naphtha
Platts
The lightest liquid cut: gasoline's feedstock in the West, the steam cracker's diet in the East.
The lightest liquid cut: gasoline's feedstock in the West, the steam cracker's diet in the East.
Top Producers
share of 2024 global naphtha exports
Top Consumers
share of 2024 global naphtha demand
Main Uses
naphtha demand by end use
Top Exporters
share of 2024 seaborne naphtha exports
Top Importers
share of 2024 seaborne naphtha imports
Global Liquids Production
country share of roughly 105 million barrels per day of total liquids (crude, condensate, NGLs, biofuels, refinery processing gain), 2025 (IEA and EIA)
Global Liquids Consumption
share of roughly 105 million barrels per day of total liquids demand, 2025 (IEA and EIA)
Can it be a contract?
6 of 8 tests passed
- Written grade spec: partly. A published specification a buyer will accept sight-unseen.Paraffinic and heavy full-range are different feeds
- Fungible: passes. Any lot of the grade substitutes for any other.Any lot substitutes for another
- Dispatchable: passes. Available at the cadence the buyer needs. Storage is only one route to that; generation and continuous flow are others, which is why power trades without being storable.Available on demand from stock or flow
- Delivery point: passes. A point the trade already uses can stand for the market. A contract cannot invent a delivery location; it has to adopt one the physical flows already run through. The clearest proof that a point qualifies is a liquid basis market against it: every other US gas hub quotes as a spread to Henry Hub, every ISO node settles against its hub, and grades quote as differentials to Brent. Where a point has no basis market quoting off it, it is not really the delivery point.A delivery point the trade already uses
- Observable spot price: partly. Somebody publishes or assesses a price the trade recognises.Assessed, broker-driven
- Many on both sides: passes. Enough independent buyers and sellers that no one party sets the price.Many independent buyers and sellers
- Volatility worth hedging: passes. Prices move enough that someone needs to transfer the risk.Moves enough to need hedging
- Enforceable venue: passes. Contracts can be written and enforced where both sides trust the courts. This is separate from the delivery point and often decides it: Russia and Saudi Arabia sit on enormous, long-established physical flows and no forward settles in either, because the flow test passes and the law test does not.Enforceable in a trusted jurisdiction
Forward market: Yes
Passes as an assessed swaps market, with grade variation the main friction.
Hover a test for its definition, or compare all 129 markets →
Global naphtha demand
roughly 7 million b/d
as of 2025
Primary Asian benchmark
C+F Japan (MOPJ), quoted in USD per tonne
Main demand sink
steam cracking for ethylene and propylene
Key relative-value spread
naphtha versus propane, the cracker feedstock switch
Naphtha is the light end of the crude barrel between LPG and kerosene, and it leads a double life. In the Atlantic basin it is mostly a gasoline-economy molecule: reformed into high-octane blendstock or blended directly. East of Suez it is mostly a petrochemical feedstock: Asia's steam crackers consume it to make ethylene and propylene, and its aromatics-rich cuts feed benzene, toluene, and xylene production. The benchmarks reflect the split: Platts CIF Northwest Europe cargoes price the Western market, and C+F Japan, the basis of the Mean of Platts Japan (MOPJ) swaps curve, prices the Asian one. Both quote in dollars per tonne, and the East-West spread plus freight governs the steady flow of European, Mediterranean, US, and Middle East naphtha toward Asian crackers.
Naphtha's defining competition is with LPG. Modern flexible crackers can swap a share of their feed to propane or butane when those price below naphtha on an ethylene-yield basis, so the naphtha-propane spread is the market's daily referendum on feedstock economics. The US shale boom tilted the global game: cheap American ethane and LPG gave US crackers a structural cost advantage and pushed marginal olefin economics against naphtha-based producers, while China's enormous 2020s buildout of naphtha-fed crackers and reformers kept absolute Asian demand growing anyway. The naphtha-Brent crack is the cleanest read on that tug of war, persistently weak when petchem margins sag and gasoline blending fails to absorb the surplus.
Sanctions rewired the supply map after February 2022: Russian naphtha, embargoed by the EU from February 5, 2023, rerouted to Asian and Middle Eastern buyers at discounts, while Middle East condensate splitters and US Gulf exports grew as alternative sources for Asia.
How It Trades
| Venue | Platts MOC assessments (CIF NWE and C+F Japan); MOPJ swaps cleared on CME and ICE |
| Benchmark contract | Platts naphtha CIF NWE cargoes and C+F Japan (MOPJ), with the MOPJ swap curve as the main paper market |
| Contract size | Swaps in 1,000-tonne lots typically; physical cargoes commonly 25,000 to 75,000 tonnes for the East-West arbitrage |
| Price terms | USD per tonne |
| Settlement | Cash settlement against the monthly average of the relevant Platts assessment |
| Typical curve | Tracks crude with its own petchem-margin overlay; the East-West spread and the naphtha-propane spread are the watched relative-value legs |
| Liquidity | Active MOPJ swaps and East-West spread market in Singapore and London hours; institutional and broker-driven rather than screen-driven |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global daily traded naphtha volume, 2025
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- Middle East refiners and condensate splitters, the largest exporters to Asia
- Russia, rerouted to Asia at discounts since the EU product embargo of February 5, 2023
- European and Mediterranean refiners with structural naphtha surpluses
- US Gulf Coast, exporting light naphtha from shale-condensate processing
- India and North African exporters
Naphtha supply is a byproduct of crude and condensate processing rather than a targeted yield, so supply responds to refinery runs, not to naphtha prices.
Top consumers
- Asian steam crackers: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China
- Chinese reformers and aromatics complexes feeding the polyester chain
- Gasoline blenders and reformers in the Atlantic basin
Major uses
- Steam cracker feedstock for ethylene and propylene
- Reformer feedstock for octane and BTX aromatics
- Direct gasoline blending
- Diluent for heavy crude transport
What Moves the Price
- Asian steam cracker operating rates and olefin margins
- The naphtha-propane spread, which flips flexible crackers between feedstocks
- Gasoline blending demand, which competes for the same molecules in the Atlantic basin
- Chinese cracker, reformer, and aromatics capacity additions
- Russian export rerouting and discount levels since February 2023
- Condensate splitter output in the Middle East and the US
- Freight rates on the Europe-to-Asia and US-to-Asia routes
Moments That Made the Market
1970s
Asian petrochemical industry builds around imported naphtha, establishing the Japan price basis
2008
Naphtha follows crude to records, then collapses with petchem demand in the financial crisis
2012
US shale ethane begins displacing naphtha at the margin of global cracker economics
2020
COVID crushes gasoline blending demand while petchem demand for packaging holds up; naphtha's two lives diverge sharply
2022
Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the looming EU embargo begin rerouting Russian naphtha east at discounts
2023
EU embargo on Russian products takes effect February 5, 2023; China's cracker buildout absorbs the rerouted supply
What Changed Since the 2010 Era
- US shale gave ethane and LPG a structural cost edge, demoting naphtha from default cracker feed to the marginal one in much of the world
- China built a wave of naphtha-fed crackers and aromatics plants in the 2020s, keeping Asian import demand growing despite feedstock competition
- Russian naphtha flows flipped from Europe to Asia under the February 2023 embargo
- Condensate splitters in the Middle East and US became major supply sources that barely existed in 2010
- Gasoline-blending demand became more seasonal and less reliable as a naphtha sink in the EV era