SINGAPORE: Asia-Pacific crude stayed weak on Wednesday as supply overhang and an open arbitrage window weighed on the market.
Petral, the trading arm of Pertamina, re-issued a tender seeking sweet crude for December delivery, a trader said. In the tender which closes on Friday with validity until Monday, Petral was likely to purchase Nigerian Qua Iboe, he said. The company may have bought a Kikeh cargo in an earlier tender.
Thailand's PTT also issued its monthly tender seeking sweet crude for Dec. 1-5 arrival. The tender will close on Oct. 9 and offers will remain valid for a day.
For Russian grades, Rosneft extended the validity of its Sokol tender to Oct. 8 and has awarded its ESPO tender.
Unipec bought three of the five ESPO cargoes offered by Rosneft in the tender at $2-$2.20 a barrel above Dubai quotes, traders said, at the higher end of the range of premiums for November cargoes. Unipec's cargoes will load on Nov. 2-5, 20-23 and 24-27.
Shell bought a cargo to load on Nov. 15-18 at a premium slightly higher than $1.80 a barrel while a fifth cargo for Nov. 28-Dec. 1 will be re-offered by Rosneft in a new tender, they said.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), or Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, widened by 20 cents to $1.45 a barrel. The narrow EFS has kept the arbitrage window for Atlantic Basin grades wide open although Asia could face more competition from the U.S. in getting their hands on the oil.
U.S. East Coast refiners rushed to buy crude from Azerbaijan and West Africa this week as slumping European oil prices and buoyant U.S. cash crude markets re-opened an increasingly rare arbitrage opportunity, traders said.
* MARKET NEWS
The U.S. Energy Information Administration trimmed its forecast of world oil demand growth next year and made even deeper cuts in its outlook for OPEC production, the latest signs of a shift toward surplus supplies next year.
Iran Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Tuesday that OPEC has no plans to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the recent slide in oil prices, Iran's oil ministry news agency Shana reported.
European Union sanctions on Iran's main oil tanker firm NITC have been annulled after the EU failed to appeal against a court ruling that ordered the measures to be lifted, the shipping company said.
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