SINGAPORE: March Murban crude differentials fell to parity from premiums in the previous month as supply continued to overwhelm the Middle East crude market, traders said on Friday.
TonenGeneral and SK Energy bought one Murban each for March loading at about parity to OSP, down from premiums in the previous month, they said.
This was despite ADNOC reducing the official selling price (OSP) for its flagship grade.
March Banoco Arab Medium flipped into a small premium against OSP after BAPCO sold a cargo via a tender to SK Energy at that level, traders said. This was likely due to expectations of a cut in Saudi's Arab Medium OSP for March although limited demand for the grade capped gains, they said.
Prior to the tender, Banoco Arab Medium had been traded at discounts, traders said.
Vitol bought 13 Dubai partials from Unipec, Gunvor and Shell at $43.90 a barrel. Shell and Unipec will deliver an Upper Zakum cargo each to Vitol.
Mercuria sold a May Dubai partial to Shell at $47.25.
TENDERS
More details emerged for Tasweeq's al-Shaheen tender. TonenGeneral, ExxonMobil and Chevron bought one cargo each.
Surgutneftegaz offered two 730,000-barrel ESPO cargoes for or loading from Kozmino on Feb. 18 - March 5 and March 6-11 in a tender that closes on Jan. 16 at 14:00 Moscow time.
DME OMAN
DME Oman for March settled at $45.14 a barrel, at 0830 GMT, unchanged from Thursday. This puts DME Oman at $1.89 a barrel below Dubai swaps against a discount of $1.90 in the previous session.
REFINERY
PetroChina's Sichuan refinery and petrochemical complex is in the middle of a major planned overhaul till early February, a senior industry official with direct knowledge of the plant's operations said.
PetroChina's Dushanzi refinery plans to shut down for routine maintenance in April, a source at the plant, located near the Kazakh border, said.
A major new joint-venture refinery in Saudi Arabia on Thursday shipped its first clean diesel cargo, the company Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Co (Yasref) said.
MARKET NEWS
The collapse in oil prices is starting to slow growth in US output, OPEC said on Thursday, although the slowdown will not prevent an increasing global surplus in 2015 and demand for the exporter group's oil falling to its lowest in a decade.
Traders are shipping West African crude to the United States to store the oil until prices recover, as the global glut forces them to source any tanks available and as seaborne cargoes are able to compete better on price with US crude.
A dramatic rise in the value of the Swiss franc sent costs soaring for the country's commodity trading houses on Thursday, adding to pressures from tax and regulatory uncertainty that has already pushed many abroad.
Japan's five biggest oil refiners may post more than $4 billion in inventory losses in their 2014 business years due to the 60 percent plunge in global crude prices since June, according to two analysts.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.