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SINGAPORE: Asia-Pacific crude stayed under pressure on Thursday as strong Brent prices depressed spot differentials for June-loading cargoes, traders said.
Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, or Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), hovered near their highest in more than three months.
Vietnamese crude kicked off June trade weaker after PV Oil awarded a cargo of Thang Long to Unipec at parity to 50 cents a barrel above dated Brent, down from a premium of about $1 a barrel in the previous month, traders said.
The cargo will load on June 18-24.
PV Oil is due to award more tenders to sell Ruby, Chim Sao, Su Tu Den and TGT over the next few days.
Regional condensate also remained under pressure after a fire struck an oil tank at Jurong Aromatics on Wednesday, which is likely to delay its restart planned for May, traders said.
Prompt North West Shelf (NWS) condensate meant to start up the plant may have to be resold, they said.
Indonesia's demand may provide some support. Pertamina re-issued a tender to buy a condensate cargo for delivery in the earlier part of June. It remained unclear if Pertamina has awarded previous tenders to buy cargoes for late May and June
delivery.
For Russian ESPO, Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and Tenergy will close their tenders on Thursday. Surgut is selling five cargoes loading in June 7-11, 11-15, 15-19, 22-26 and June 27-July 1 and Rosneft has three cargoes loading on June 3-6, 10-13 and 26-29.
MARKET NEWS
Russia said on Wednesday it was prepared to push oil production to historic highs, just days after a global deal to freeze output levels collapsed and Saudi Arabia threatened to flood markets with more crude.
Russia beat Saudi Arabia as China's top crude oil supplier in March, a follow-on to taking the No.1 spot in four months of 2015, customs data showed on Thursday, due to strong purchases from the Chinese independent refineries known as "teapots".
Non-OPEC supply is expected to post the biggest decline in 25 years, down 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year, International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol said on Thursday.
Repair work on a Nigerian pipeline feeding the key Forcados export terminal will last until June, the country's oil minister said on Wednesday, confirming a Reuters report from last week.
Global oil pricing agency Platts said on Thursday it will set a quality premium for Murban crude deliveries during its daily assessment process of the Dubai and Oman benchmarks for Middle East oil from July 1.
Bharat Petroleum Corp plans to become the first Indian state refiner to open a trading unit in Singapore to take advantage of new crude import rules to buy cheaper oil and get better terms from producers.
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