SINGAPORE: The Asia-Pacific crude market strengthened on Thursday after Brent's premium to Dubai crude narrowed to its lowest since 2010, making regional Brent-linked grades more competitive against Middle Eastern oil.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS) for March was valued at $0.62 a barrel, down 63 cents from Wednesday's close and the narrowest since June 15, 2010. The April spread narrowed 20 cents to $1.12 a barrel.
The narrowing gap was triggered by strong demand for Middle Eastern grades after exporters lowered official selling prices this month.
The flow of Atlantic basin cargoes to Asia was still limited by high freight rates, although a narrowing spread may encourage more movement.
PV Oil, the marketing arm of PetroVietnam, offered 300,000 barrels of Bunga Kekwa loading in April in a tender that closes on Feb. 25.
Sakhalin Energy issued a tender to sell 730,000 barrels of Sakhalin Blend, formerly Vityaz, loading April 24-May 1. The tender closes on Feb. 17. Three other Sakhalin Blend cargoes are due to load April 30-May 7, May 7-14 and May 13-20.
Traders were awaiting the result of a tender by ONGC to sell a cargo of Sokol crude loading April 5-11.
* MARKET NEWS
India slashed imports of Iranian oil in January as New Delhi scrambled to bring its purchases from the OPEC member in line with 2013 levels, according to data from trade sources and ship tracking data on the Thomson Reuters terminal.
French major Total took a $6.5 billion writedown in the fourth quarter on Canadian oil sands, U.S. shale gas and European refining assets as the collapse in crude prices sent net adjusted profits down 10 percent.
An oil tanker has docked at Libya's port of Hariga for the first time since security guards ended a strike this week and a storm passed, a port official said.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.