SINGAPORE: The spread between cash Oman and Dubai widened to at least $3 a barrel in the Middle East crude market on Thursday following trades on the window.
Gulf producers may take into account the wide spread between the two markers and reduce official selling prices (OSPs) next month, traders said.
Mercuria sold an Oman partial to Shell at $47.50 a barrel while Mercuria bought five Dubai partials at $44.10-$44.70 from Shell, Gunvor, Vitol and Unipec. Unipec will deliver an Upper Zakum cargo to Mercuria.
ADNOC is likely to raise the Murban OSP differential to Dubai for Murban by 20-30 cents, traders said, while that for Das could rise by 50 cents, after March-loading cargoes were sold at premiums.
Traders said it was harder to predict for Upper Zakum as a price cut would be in line with a wider Dubai contango structure but the grade's value is supported by demand as a deliverable grade in the window.
The OSP for Qatar Marine will continue to be under pressure after March-loading cargoes were traded at discounts between 30 and 50 cents a barrel.
*TENDERS
Taiwanese refiner Formosa closed on Thursday a tender to buy April-loading Oman on OSP basis.
Rosneft sold another five cargoes via a tender at premiums between $2.50 and $2.60 a barrel to Dubai quotes, traders said on Thursday. An unknown trader bought a cargo loading on March 1-6 while Unipec and Statoil purchased two cargoes each for March 6-9, 9-12, 12-15 and 13-16.
Statoil has bought at least three March-loading ESPO cargoes this month and they could be stored in tanks in South Korea, traders said.
"Prompt margins are improving and spot premiums for competing grades like Murban and Das were higher," a trader with a North Asian firm said.
DME OMAN
DME Oman for March settled at $47.32 a barrel at 0830 GMT, down 28 cents. This puts DME Oman at a premium of $0.15 a barrel to Dubai swaps against a premium of $0.13 in the previous session.
REFINERY
GS Caltex Corp, South Korea's second largest refiner, is to shut a crude distillation unit (CDU) and a gasoline-making unit in early May for a month-long maintenance, traders said.
South Korea's S-Oil Corp plans to shut two crude units, two secondary units and a condensate splitter for planned maintenance between February and November at its 669,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Onsan refinery, industry sources said.
Top Chinese refiner Sinopec's plan to build a greenfield refinery in Caofeidian of northern Hebei province has won final government approval, official newspaper Economic Daily reported on Thursday.
Japan's top oil refiner JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp said on Thursday it would refine 4 percent less crude oil for domestic consumption in February than the same month a year earlier, with milder winter weather curbing demand.
MARKET NEWS
China and Myanmar put into trial operation the Myanmar section of a shared crude oil pipeline on Wednesday, Chinese state media reported.
Chinese refineries will be expected to store enough crude for 15 days of average throughput, the country's top economic planner said on Wednesday in a rare statement on commercial stockpiles.
Oil tankers booked by traders for storage at sea has reached at least 50 million barrels, industry sources said.
Barclays Plc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc issued even more bearish forecasts for oil prices on Wednesday, predicting no significant recovery in the first half of 2015.
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