SINGAPORE: The Asia-Pacific crude market was weighed by ample supply and weak demand from refiners even as profits from processing crude improved in recent weeks.
A glut of crude has built in Asia as many Asian refiners have lowered their throughput and as a flood of arbitrage barrels comes to the region.
Complex refining margins in the Singapore hub averaged around $6 a barrel in the past week, up from around $3.70 in August. Still, differentials for regional grades remained under pressure as refiners were cautious to increase run rates.
Traders said cargoes of Vietnam's Su Tu Den were still unsold, while Malaysia's new Kimanis grade had yet to be traded.
PV Oil may have sold two cargoes of Ruby crude loading Nov. 7-13 and Nov. 22-26 to an oil major and a trading firm at a discount to Dated Brent, traders said, but details could not be confirmed.
Exports of Russia's ESPO blend are set to fall in November to 20 cargoes, including two cross-month cargoes, a preliminary loading programme showed. That is four fewer than in the previous month.
Rosneft issued a tender to sell five 730,000-barrel cargoes of ESPO crude loading Nov. 2-5, Nov. 15-18, Nov. 20-23, Nov. 24-27 and Nov. 28-Dec. 1. The tender will close on Friday with bids valid until Oct. 1.
Premiums for ESPO had come under pressure as a refinery fire in Russia has freed more cargoes for export to an already well-supplied market.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), or Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, widened 7 cents to $1.07 a barrel.
REFINERY
Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp said it would raise runs at its 540,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Mailiao refinery by about 2 percentage points to 95 percent in October after operations at a secondary unit were restored.
Japan's Showa Shell Sekiyu KK said affiliate Seibu Oil restarted its 120,000-bpd crude distillation unit (CDU) at the Yamaguchi refinery on Tuesday as planned following scheduled maintenance.
TonenGeneral Sekiyu KK, Japan's second-biggest oil refiner by capacity, said it shut the 132,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) crude distillation unit (CDU) at its 132,000-bpd Wakayama refinery in western Japan for scheduled maintenance late on Wednesday.
MARKET NEWS
Rosneft, Russia's biggest crude oil producer, may back out of a deal to buy Morgan Stanley's oil trading unit because Western sanctions make it virtually impossible to finance day-to-day operations, three sources close to the state-controlled company said.
Airlines in Asia are stepping up jet fuel hedge volumes after oil prices fell below $100 a barrel this month, with some locking in fuel purchases as far out as 2016, suggesting airlines see oil prices bottoming.
Libya's eastern Hariga oil port has fully recovered from eight months of blockades by protesters and is exporting more than 120,000 barrels a day, port officials said.
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