LONDON: Forties crude differentials were offered at their weakest in two weeks on Monday as a major North Sea oilfield returned to production after a month-long outage, and as the Brent futures curve steepened against a backdrop of persistent oversupply.
The refinery maintenance season has led to an overhang of Nigerian crude, and a number of tankers holding unsold North Sea oil and rising tanker rates that have dragged on the market.
The contango between the first- and second-month ICE Brent futures contracts increased to $1.00, its widest since Sept. 30, the point at which the previous front-month Brent contract expired.
The Buzzard oilfield, the largest contributing oilfield to the Forties stream with output of 180,000 bpd, is set to come back online on Tuesday or Wednesday after a month of planned maintenance work, an industry source said.
Parcel F1115 has been dropped from the November Forties loading programme, according to trading sources, bring overall supply of this grade to 400,000 bpd next month from an original 420,000 bpd.
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