SINGAPORE: The Asia-Pacific crude market came under pressure on Monday from waning refinery appetite after Taiwan's CPC failed to award an import tender.
CPC had sought to buy two cargoes of sweet crude for May-arrival on the spot market, but did not award the tender, traders said. Last month, the company bought three cargoes of West African crude on the spot market.
Instead, CPC would take delivery of a cargo each of Angolan Cabinda and Girassol under term contracts, traders said.
Spot differentials for Vietnam's Ruby crude increased slightly, after PV Oil sold two 300,000-barrel cargoes loading April 9-16 and April 22-29 in a tender to Shell and Japan's Taiyo Oil at $1.30-$1.50 a barrel above dated Brent, traders said.
Last month, the medium sweet grade fetched a premium of around $1.30 a barrel, according to Reuter’s data.
Spot differentials for April-loading Vietnamese grades had mostly improved from the previous month due to robust demand from refiners, but traders said most refiners had fulfilled their requirements by now as they prepare for seasonal maintenance.
Malaysia's Petronas was still in the process of marketing several April-loading cargoes.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), or Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, held steady for the third straight session at about $1.95 a barrel.
The official Indonesia Crude Price (ICP) for Minas has been calculated at $54.11 a barrel for February, up $8.55 from the previous month, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Monday.
The official selling price of a basket of Malaysian crude oil for February-loading has been set at $62.93 a barrel, Petronas said on Monday.
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