LONDON: North Sea Forties crude price differentials edged up on Thursday as Trafigura continued bidding, but Oseberg weakened against a backdrop of ample supplies for February.
"There is a lot of oil in the market and this quarter, global demand is seasonally low," said Abhishek Deshpande, an oil analyst at Natixis.
Several new fields are coming on stream this month, helping to offset declining output from older fields such as Buzzard.
On Thursday, BG Group announced the start up of gas and condensate production from the Total-operated West Franklin field in the UK segment of the North Sea.
The field is expected to deliver 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with condensate transported to Kinneil via the Forties pipeline.
A little earlier in January, Total said it had started production from its Eldfisk II oil field in the Norwegian North Sea.
The project, which is operated by ConocoPhillips, is expected to deliver about 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Eldfisk II sits within the Greater Ekofisk Area, so the oil will be transported via pipeline to Teesside, England.
"New fields are benefiting from the record investment in 2014 and those that came on later last year are ramping up," said Virendra Chauhan, an analyst at Energy Aspects.
In December BP brought its Kinnoull field on stream , and Nexen's Golden Eagle field started pumping in November.
FORTIES
Trafigura bid for Forties loading on Jan. 28-30 at dated Brent plus 5 cents and for Feb. 7-9 Forties at dated Brent minus 5 cents, under terms where one offer cancels out the other if it is taken up.
These bids were firmer than those it made on Wednesday for the same loading dates.
OSEBERG
Suncor sold its Feb. 7-9 Oseberg cargo to Shell at dated Brent plus 60 cents.
This was slightly weaker than Wednesday's Oseberg trade, which came at dated Brent plus 63 cents.
The quality premium for February Oseberg cargoes is 77 cents, so Oseberg sets the price of dated Brent.
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