SINGAPORE: The Middle East crude market held steady on Wednesday, as traders awaited monthly official selling prices (OSP) from Saudi Arabia to gauge direction for February trading.
Abu Dhabi's ADNOC and Qatar's Tasweeq this week announced small cuts in their official selling prices. Traders are expecting Saudi Arabia to cut prices for its Arab Light by $2-$3 a barrel, after the Kingdom last month raised OSPs.
More detail emerged on CPC's tender to import January-loading crude. The Taiwan refinery bought a cargo of ESPO from Shell at $2.50 a barrel above Dubai quotes and 1 million barrels of Basra Light from Unipec at 20-30 cents a barrel above its OSP on a delivered basis, traders said.
CPC also bought 1 million barrels of Murban loading in December from Total, although the price was not clear.
Most January cargoes have sold at better differentials from the previous month, as the inflow of light crude from other regions into Asia has been limited by high freight rates and Brent's widening premium to Dubai crude.
Refining margins have improved as lower crude prices stoked some demand for oil products. But traders were cautious to predict an end to the glut of crude that has built up in recent months amid an economic slowdown and ample supply.
REFINERY
The first fuel exports from the 400,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Co (Yasref) refinery, a joint venture between Saudi Aramco and China's Sinopec, will be delayed to early next year from late this year, sources close to the matter said.
DME OMAN
DME Oman for February settled at $68.34 a barrel, down $1.10, at 0830 GMT. This puts DME Oman at 40 cents a barrel below Dubai swaps, down from a discount of 11 cents in the previous session.
MARKET NEWS
Trafigura, one of the world's biggest commodities trading firms, played a pivotal role in helping Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region export oil, which the Iraqi government considered illegal, three sources familiar with the trades said.
Top international oil producers in Gabon were forced to cut output while Gabon's sole refinery was shuttered as more workers joined an industry-wide strike in the former French colony, union ONEP said on Thursday.
Niger Delta fishermen are no strangers to seeing oil spill into their waters from leaky pipelines, but even they were shocked by the scale of the slick stretching for miles from a Shell facility across the swamps and into the ocean.
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