SINGAPORE: Offers for May-loading Vietnamese crude were released on Thursday even as various April cargoes from last month remain uncommitted.
Vietnamese state-marketer PV Oil is offering a 300,000-barrel cargo of Ruby crude for May. 12-19 loading in a tender that closes on Mar. 9. May Ruby supplies are one cargo fewer than in April, when Shell bought two cargoes of the grade at an average premium of about $2.30 per barrel to dated Brent.
The Vietnamese tender caught traders off-guard because it was released earlier than in previous months.
"They are afraid of (a) bear market," an official from a regional refiner said, referring to the early release of the sell tender.
Regional premiums for light sweet Malaysian crude are seen under pressure from ample supplies and weak light distillate refining margins, traders said.
Naphtha refining margins to Dubai crude have fallen by 31 percent from mid-February levels to around $79.08 per tonne. Gasoline margins have also dropped 37 percent in the same period to $7.86 per barrel, Thomson Reuters Eikon data shows.
Malaysia's state-owned Petronas is due to award its April Kidurong and Kimanis sell tenders in the coming days, having closed the tender on Thursday.
Indonesia's state oil firm Pertamina awarded its second Banyu Urip tender in a month to a Japanese trader at a high-$6 per barrel premium to the grade's Indonesia Crude Price (ICP). The deal level is equivalent to around $3.50 per barrel above dated Brent, a source with knowledge of the deal said.
The premium for the Mar. 28-29 cargo rose by close to $1 per barrel from Pertamina's previous sell tender for a Mar. 17-18 cargo that was sold at a premium around $6 last month.
Banyu Urip premiums, when compared with Malaysian crude, have remained firm because the Indonesian grade has a higher yield of heavier refined products that are currently deemed more profitable than light products, traders said.
Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, or Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), was at $1.44 per barrel, down 4 cents for May.
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