SINGAPORE: The Middle East crude market held steady on Thursday as traders looked ahead to results of the Qatari al-Shaheen tender before commencing January trade.
Four cargoes of the heavy sour grade have been sold prior to the tender at $1-$1.50 a barrel below Dubai quotes, wider discounts than last month, traders said.
January spot differentials for medium and heavy grades may be weaker than in the last month without the support of robust demand from Chinaoil, they said.
The trading arm of PetroChina bought a record 47 cargoes on the trade window last month, tightening spot supply and pushing up differentials for December-loading Middle East crude to multi-month highs.
TENDERS
State-run Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp (JOGMEC) bought about 1.26 million barrels (200,000 kilolitres) of Abu Dhabi Das crude from Itochu Corp for the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserves, two industry sources said.
JOGMEC had been seeking 1.26 million barrels of Middle Eastern light crude, with shipments to be delivered to the Shibushi national oil storage base in Kagoshima, southern Japan, operated by a wholly-owned unit of JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp , between Jan. 25 and March 5.
2015 TERM
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) has cut the premium that term customers pay for 2015 Murban crude supply after the grade has traded at a discount in the spot market for most of this year, traders said.
ADNOC sold Murban to major oil companies, Asian refiners and trading firms at 7 cents a barrel to the grade's official selling price (OSP) for January-June 2015 supply, down from 12 cents in 2014, they said.
Omani crude oil sellers have also sealed term deals at premiums of 6 to 8 cents a barrel to DME quotes for 2015, down from 7 to 10 cents in the previous year, traders said.
DME OMAN
DME Oman for January settled at $78.35, down $1.37, at 0830 GMT. This puts DME Oman at 45 cents a barrel below Dubai swaps, compared with a discount of 60 cents in the previous session.
On the Platts window, Trafigura bought four Dubai partials from Shell at $76.40 a barrel.
REFINERY
Indian Oil Corp has deferred a planned shutdown of key units at its Koyali refinery in western Gujarat state to March-April 2015 from around October this year to capitalize on sliding crude prices, two company sources said.
MARKET NEWS
China's implied oil demand in October slipped 2.4 percent from September's seven-month high, with slightly higher refinery runs offset by outgoing shipments as the world's top energy consumer once again turned net fuel exporter.
Global demand for oil from OPEC next year will be far below its current output level because of the US shale boom, the group said on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi broke months of silence on Wednesday to reaffirm the kingdom's longstanding policy of seeking stable global markets, dismissing talk of a "price war" but offering no insight on his response to tumbling crude prices.
Falling oil prices may cut investment in US shale oil by 10 percent next year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said, slowing growth in a sector that has turned the United States into a major global producer.
Libya on Wednesday abandoned an attempt to restart production at the El Sharara oil field, one of the country's biggest, after a pipeline blockage, state-run National Oil Corp (NOC) said.
Taiwan imported 25.80 million barrels of crude in September, down 22.7 percent from a month ago, government data showed.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.