Med Crude-Urals diffs in NW Europe slip below dated Brent as Glencore sells cargo

MOSCOW: Urals crude differentials in northwest Europe lost 35 cents a barrel to dated Brent on Thursday, with only one deal completed, while traders expect ample supply of the grade in May.

Urals crude loadings from Russia's Baltic Sea ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga for May 1-10 were set at 2.3 million tonnes, up from 2.1 million tonnes in the same period of April, a provisional loading plan seen by Reuters showed.

Urals and Siberian Light loadings from Novorossiisk on May 1-11 will rise to 0.98 million tonnes, up by 0.29 million tonnes from loadings between April 1 and 11.

PLATTS WINDOW

Glencore sold to Total 100,000 tonnes of Baltic Urals for April 30 - May 4 loading at dated Brent minus $0.30 a barrel.

There were no bids or offers for Urals, Azeri BTC and Siberian Light in the Mediterranean on Thursday.

NEWS

Azerbaijan's state-owned SOCAR plans to reach full oil refining capacity of 200,000 barrels per day at its Turkish STAR plant in May, three industry sources said, adding to shortages of Russian Urals crude in southern Europe.

Azeri oil exports through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline via Georgia and Turkey fell 1.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2019 to 8.150 million tonnes, the State Statistics Committee said on Thursday.

Oil loadings from Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiisk have been suspended since April 17 due to a storm, Interfax news agency quoted Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft as saying on Thursday.