SINGAPORE: The Middle East crude market was mixed on Thursday as Indian refiners swept up the remaining Qatar Marine available in November at wide discounts while the differential for Basra Light improved.
Occidental, Unipec and Itochu sold four Qatar Marine cargoes at discounts between $2 and $2.20 a barrel to Dubai quotes, traders said, following Petro-Diamond's deal with Reliance earlier this week.
November Basra Light has flipped into a single-digit premium to its OSP after Petronas sold destination-free Iraqi oil to an oil major, they said. A sharp reduction in the grade's OSP helped prop up spot differentials. Still, bids from Indian refiners remained at discounts of 10-20 cents to OSP.
Trade in Russian ESPO picked up with Rosneft offering five cargoes for loading on Nov. 2-5, 15-18, 20-23, 24-27 and Nov. 28-Dec. 1. Its tender will close on Sept. 26 with bids valid until Oct. 1.
Recovering margins and winter demand may support ESPO at about $2 a barrel above Dubai quotes, a trader said.
DME OMAN
DME Oman for November settled at $95.36, down 17 cents, at 0830 GMT. This puts DME Oman at 28 cents a barrel below Dubai swaps against a discount of 17 cents in the previous session.
REFINERY
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
Saudi Arabia pumped 9.597 million barrels of oil per day in August, down by 408,000 bpd from around 10 million bpd in July, an industry source said.
But the amount of crude supplied to the market inched up to 9.688 million bpd in August, the source said.
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.
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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