SINGAPORE: Spot differentials for Qatari al-Shaheen fell to a fresh low on Tuesday in the Middle East crude market after Tasweeq sold five cargoes at wider discounts than the previous month.
The cargoes were sold at discounts between $2.20 and $2.70 a barrel to Dubai quotes, traders said, down from $1.50-$2.30 a barrel in the previous month.
TonenGeneral and ExxonMobil bought two cargoes each while SK Energy took one, they said.
Upper Zakum's discount could also widen after Shell offered a cargo on the Platts window at 50 cents a barrel below its OSP. One to two cargoes of the Abu Dhabi grade have been sold at discounts of about 50 cents a barrel prior to Shell's offer, a trader said.
Banoco Arab Medium may have traded at 50 cents a barrel below its OSP although details remained sketchy, traders said.
Taiwanese refiner Formosa has closed a tender to buy sour crude loading in November. Traders said the refiner, which bought three Qatar Marine cargoes last month, could be looking at the same grade again.
For Russian ESPO, Rosneft re-issued a tender to sell a cargo loading on Oct. 12-13 while Surgutneftegas revised the closing date for its tender that offered an Oct. 31-Nov. 5 cargo.
DME OMAN
DME Oman for November settled at $96.62, up $1.11, at 0830 GMT. This put DME Oman at 82 cents a barrel below Dubai swaps against a 94 cent discount in the previous session.
Dubai bid/offer at $96.15 versus $96.30 a barrel, traders said. There were no cash Dubai deals.
MARKET NEWS
OPEC's secretary general said he expected the group to lower its oil output target when it meets in late November, which would be its first formal output cut since the 2008 financial crisis.
Libya's National Oil Corp (NOC) has cut output "slightly" from the El Sharara oilfield as a precaution after rockets landed near the Zawiya refinery, to which it is linked, an NOC spokesman said on Tuesday.
Oil and gas explorer Petroceltic said it would resume drilling in Iraqi Kurdistan together with partner Hess in early October, after operations were suspended last month at one of its wells due to security risks in the region.
France's Total SA, Europe's second largest oil company, has put one of its offshore Nigerian oil fields up for sale again, the company said, after a 2012 deal with Sinopec Corp failed.
China, the world's top energy consumer, plans to have a total refining capacity of 790 million tonnes a year, or 15.8 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2020, an industry website quoted a government official as saying.
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