SINGAPORE: More Russian ESPO crude to load in March was sold at higher premiums from the previous month in Asia as better margins and demand from traders for storage supported prices.
Rosneft sold another five cargoes via a tender at premiums between $2.50 and $2.60 a barrel to Dubai quotes, traders said on Thursday. An unknown trader bought a cargo loading on March 1-6 while Unipec and Statoil purchased two cargoes each for March 6-9, 9-12, 12-15 and 13-16.
Statoil has bought at least three March-loading ESPO cargoes this month and they could be stored in tanks in South Korea, traders said.
March-loading NWS condensate are sold out at $3-$3.50 a barrel below dated Brent, up from discounts wider than $3.50 in the previous month as naphtha cracks improved.
BP bought two NWS condensate cargoes from Mitsui and Woodside for loading on March 5-9 and 20-25, a trader said. Chevron sold its March 11-15 cargo to SK Energy and BHP's cargo loading on March 28-April 1 went to Samsung Total, he added. The deals could not be independently verified.
Trade for regional cargoes loading in March was still underway with Petronas marketing a Miri cargo while a cargo of Vietnamese Hai Thach was still available, a second trader said.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), or Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, was at $1.37 a barrel for March, down 1 cent. A narrowing of the spread has opened the arbitrage for west African grades to head to Asia.
REFINERY
GS Caltex Corp, South Korea's second largest refiner, is to shut a crude distillation unit (CDU) and a gasoline-making unit in early May for a month-long maintenance, traders said.
South Korea's S-Oil Corp plans to shut two crude units, two secondary units and a condensate splitter for planned maintenance between February and November at its 669,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Onsan refinery, industry sources said.
Top Chinese refiner Sinopec's plan to build a greenfield refinery in Caofeidian of northern Hebei province has won final government approval, official newspaper Economic Daily reported on Thursday.
Japan's top oil refiner JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp said on Thursday it would refine 4 percent less crude oil for domestic consumption in February than the same month a year earlier, with milder winter weather curbing demand.
MARKET NEWS
China and Myanmar put into trial operation the Myanmar section of a shared crude oil pipeline on Wednesday, Chinese state media reported.
Chinese refineries will be expected to store enough crude for 15 days of average throughput, the country's top economic planner said on Wednesday in a rare statement on commercial stockpiles.
Oil tankers booked by traders for storage at sea have reached at least 50 million barrels, industry sources said.
Barclays Plc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc issued even more bearish forecasts for oil prices on Wednesday, predicting no significant recovery in the first half of 2015.
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