SINGAPORE: Vietnamese grades held steady in the Asia-Pacific crude market on Thursday as ample supplies and strong Brent prices versus Dubai continued to weigh down spot differentials for regional grades.
State oil marketer PV Oil sold Hai Thach loading between July and December to Gunvor at $2.10 a barrel above dated Brent, traders said, steady from the previous six months.
Gunvor was also the buyer for January-June supplies, a trader said.
Separately, PV Oil sold a 200,000-barrel Hai Thach cargo to Unipec at parity to dated Brent, little changed from the previous month, traders said. The cargo will load on July 21-27.
North West Shelf condensate (NWS) held steady as BHP sold a July-loading cargo to Shell at a premium just above $2 a barrel to dated Brent, traders said. Shell likely bought the cargo for TPPI after it was awarded the July-December term tender from Pertamina, they said.
Still, traders expect weak naphtha cracks to weigh on the value of NWS.
A fleet of 40 supertankers is anchored in the region's coastal waters for use as floating storage. They are filled with 47.7 million barrels of oil, mostly crude, up 10 percent from the previous week, according to newly collected freight data in Thomson Reuters Eikon.
"The volumes of oil stored at sea in South East Asia - predominantly Singapore and Malaysia - appear to have increased significantly," said Erik Broekhuizen, Global Manager of tanker research and consultancy at New York-based shipping brokerage Poten & Partners. "The current volumes are the highest for at least the last five years."
Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, or Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), fell 16 cents to $3.45 a barrel for July.
RUSSIAN GRADES
Russian Sokol premiums rose on firm demand from Japan and China, traders said.
Exxon Mobil sold at least two July-loading Sokol cargoes at $4.70-$4.80 a barrel above Dubai quotes, up from premiums of $3.80 and $4.30 a barrel in the previous month.
Tenergy closed on Thursday a tender to sell a cargo either loading on July 7-12 or 14-19.
Sakhalin Energy has sold four July-loading Sakhalin Blend cargoes at about $4 a barrel above Dubai quotes to Chinese and Japanese buyers, steady premiums from the previous month, traders said. High naphtha content in Sakhalin Blend prevented its premium from rising in July.
REFINERY
Japan's Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd said it would refine nearly 463,000 barrels per day (2.28 million kilolitres) of crude oil in May, up 43 percent from a year earlier when volumes were low due to scheduled maintenance at its main refinery in Chiba.
Saudi Arabia's Rabigh Refining And Petrochemical Co. (PetroRabigh) said on Thursday it was working to gradually restart some of its units after a brief power and steam disruption.
MARKET NEWS
Oil traders from Houston to the North Sea are tapping into plentiful storage onshore and offshore, evincing little sign of concern yet about supply losses from Canada to Nigeria that has knocked out about 2 million barrels a day of output.
Libya's Tripoli National Oil Corp (NOC) wants to book a tanker to load crude from the eastern Marsa El Hariga port this week, which if successful would break a three-week blockade at the port, shipping brokers said on Wednesday.
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