SINGAPORE: Condensate came under pressure in the Asia-Pacific crude market due to ample supply and as refiners and splitters turned to cheaper alternatives.
Price differentials for Australia's Northwest Shelf condensate (NWS) weakened after Woodside sold a Jan. 1-5 loading cargo at around $3.40-$3.70 a barrel below dated Brent, traders said. The buyer was not known and the deal could not be independently verified.
That discount is up to $1 wider than the previous month. The drop came despite a rebound in naphtha cracks, after a fifth cargo was added to the January programme.
BP may also have sold its cargo loading Jan. 11-15, traders said, but details were not available. Two or three NWS cargoes were still unsold.
Demand from Asian condensate splitters was seen low as some have cut run rates due to weak margins, while cheaper naphtha was widely available in the region.
Vietnam's PV Oil sold 200,000 barrels of Thang Long crude loading Jan. 12-21 in a tender to an oil major at around $1.50 a barrel above dated Brent, one trader said. The deal could not be independently verified.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), or Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, narrowed 27 cents to $1.79 a barrel.
West African crude oil exports to Asia are set to rise to 1.93 million barrels per day (bpd) in December from 1.84 million bpd planned for November, a Reuters survey of traders showed on Friday.
* OSP
The official Indonesia Crude Price (ICP) for Minas has been calculated at $76.33 per barrel for November, the lowest since July 2010, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Monday.
The official selling price of a basket of Malaysian crude oil for November-loading has been calculated at $84.60 a barrel, traders said on Monday.
* MARKET NEWS
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