SINGAPORE: Middle East crude benchmarks were mixed on Wednesday, with Shell's purchases underpinning Dubai while Oman weakened for a third session.
Cash Dubai's discount to swaps narrowed about 10 cents after Shell bought two April partials from Reliance at $28.80 a barrel, traders said.
Spot trade remained thin as traders await tender results from CPC. Russian ESPO crude was expected to resume trading after Russia returned from a two-day holiday on Wednesday.
*DME OMAN
DME Oman for April settled at $29.70 a barrel, down $1.09, at 0830 GMT. This puts DME Oman at 35 cents a barrel below Dubai swaps, down from a discount of 27 cents in the previous session.
Dubai has set its official differential to Oman futures OQc1 for May at a discount of $0.20 per barrel, the Dubai Department of Petroleum Affairs said on Wednesday.
*MARKET NEWS
Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said on Tuesday he was confident more countries would join a pact to freeze output at existing levels in talks expected next month, but effectively ruled out production cuts by major crude producers anytime soon.
Kurdistan's oil exports to world markets are set to be suspended for a second week running, a shipping source said, a move that will deprive Iraq's semi-autonomous region of its main revenue stream as the security situation in southeast Turkey worsens.
OPEC and non-OPEC producers should act quickly to rebalance the global oil market, otherwise they risk deep damage that could take a long time to fix, a senior Iraqi oil official said on Wednesday.
Indian state refiners are jointly negotiating oil purchase deals with OPEC producers for the first time, as the world's third-biggest consumer seizes on low prices to wrest better terms in a market awash with crude.
France's Total and Saudi Arabia's national oil company are considering expanding by 10 percent their joint refinery project to 440,000 barrels per day, a Total executive said on Tuesday.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.