SINGAPORE: The Asia-Pacific crude market held steady on Tuesday with most October-loading cargoes sold out.
Traders said they expect a slight rebound in differentials this month on improved refining margins and seasonal demand, with an overhang of cargoes in Asia slowly easing.
Complex refining margins in the Singapore hub have improved to an average of $4.85 a barrel in the last week, up from $3.66 a barrel in August.
Still, some suggested September-loading cargoes could be stored, which could weigh on the market later this year, although details could not be confirmed.
Rosneft sold two ESPO cargoes loading Oct 18-21 and Oct 27-30 in a tender to a Japanese buyer and a trading firm, traders said.
One cargo may have fetched a premium of $2 a barrel, they said, slightly higher than the $1.50-$1.90-range most October-loading cargoes have traded in. Details of the tender could not be immediately confirmed.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), or Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, was unchanged at $1.38 a barrel.
The third cargo of condensate since the United States eased its 40-year export ban has been loaded on a tanker and departed for Japan on Monday, according to shipping sources and data.
The 300,000-barrel cargo bought by Japanese refiner Cosmo Oil is expected to arrive in Japan in early October, according to the sources and Reuters AIS live shiptracking.
* MARKET NEWS
Washington is facing growing international pressure to ease its long standing ban on crude oil exports, with South Korea and Mexico joining the European Union in pressing the case for U.S. oil shipments overseas.
Iraq's oil exports fell in August to an average of 2.375 million barrels per day (bpd) from 2.442 million bpd in the previous month, officials from the state-run South Oil Company (SOC) said on Monday.
A tanker carrying disputed Iraqi Kurdish crude oil reappeared on satellite tracking on Monday near Texas, days after having gone silent with a $100 million cargo, but the latest vessel data showed it had not offloaded at sea.
The operator of the North Sea Buzzard oilfield is looking at restarting the field later on Tuesday, trading sources said, potentially adding more supplies to a market that has been pressured by a glut of crude in the Atlantic Basin.
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