SINGAPORE: Spot differentials for Russia's ESPO Blend weakened in the Asia-Pacific crude market amid increasing supply of the grade.
Rosneft sold a cargo of ESPO crude loading May 8-11 to Glencore at $1.90-$2 a barrel above Dubai quotes, traders said. The price was near the bottom of the range of previous May-loading cargoes.
Surgut earlier sold two cargoes of the grade for loading in the second half of May at a premium of $2.30-$2.50 a barrel, according to Reuters data.
Rosneft did not award for two cargoes loading May 25-28 and May 29-June 1 and issued a new tender for those cargoes.
Russia plans to export 27 cargoes of ESPO in May from the Pacific port of Kozmino, same as the record level reached in April.
The spot premium for Russia's Sokol grade held steady, after Rosneft sold at least one May loading cargo at about $4.70-$4.90 a barrel above Dubai quotes, traders said.
The company had re-tendered two cargoes after selling one at the same level in an initial tender.
Japan's commercial crude stocks rose 710,000 kilolitres last week to 13.91 million kilolitres, the Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ) said Wednesday.
Crude runs increased last week to 84.1 percent of capacity from 82.8 percent a week earlier.
South Korea's crude oil imports in March rose 6.5 percent from a year earlier to 80.6 million barrels, preliminary data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy showed on Wednesday.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), or Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, widened 3 cents to $1.25 a barrel.
OSP
The official selling price of a basket of Malaysian crude oil for March-loading has been set at $60.92 a barrel, Petronas said on Wednesday.
The official Indonesia Crude Price (ICP) for Minas was set at $54.19 a barrel for March, up 8 cents from the previous month, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.
MARKET NEWS
OPEC oil supply has jumped in March to its highest since October as Iraq's exports rebounded after bad weather and Saudi Arabia pumped at close to record rates, a Reuters survey found, a sign key members are sticking to their effort to regain market share.
A backlog of over 30 oil tankers has built up outside the Iraqi port of Basra and shippers face lengthy delays of up to three weeks to load oil because of bad weather and possible oil quality issues, shipping industry sources said.
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