MOSCOW: Urals crude differentials in northwest Europe rose on Thursday, supported by active buying interest from Shell, attractive margins and open north-south arbitrage for the grade, traders said.
In the Platts window, Shell was bidding for 100,000 tonnes of Urals for loading from Primorsk or Ust-Luga on Aug. 14-18 at dated Brent minus $1.92 a barrel, up 28 cents a barrel from its bid on Wednesday, but no seller emerged.
In the Mediterranean Litasco was bidding for 80,000 tonnes of Urals for loading on Aug. 11-15 at dated Brent minus $0.95 a barrel before withdrawing, traders said.
There were no available Urals cargoes loading from Novorossiisk before Aug. 15, they added.
Three Aframaxes and four Suezmaxes of Urals crude for loading in Novorossiisk in the second half of August have yet to find homes, a source with a trader told Reuters.
Traders in Urals paper contracts said Urals CFDs for August in the Mediterranean stood at dated Brent minus $1.56-$1.60 a barrel, as market players expect Urals differentials to soften in the second half of next month due to higher exports from Novorossiisk after repairs and arbitrage from the north.
Urals CFDs in the north were seen at around minus $2.10-$2.20 a barrel to dated Brent.
There was no activity in Azeri light and CPC Blend in the Platts window on Thursday. Oil flows from Iraqi Kurdistan via Kirkuk-Cheyhan pipeline were stable at 540,000 barrels per day, an industry source said.
Genel Energy, one of the main oil producers in Iraqi Kurdistan, cut its revenue outlook for the year on Thursday after it reduced its production target earlier this month.
TENDERS
Poland's PKN Orlen bought from Trafigura in a spot tender 100,000 tonnes of Urals crude for loading from Primrosk or Ust-Luga on August 15-19 for delivery to Butinge.
The tender closed on Thursday. The price level was slow to emerge.
Turkey's Tupras bought from Trafigura 140,000 tonnes of Urals crude for delivery to Izmit or Izmir on Aug. 18-25.
Trafigura will supply Tupras with a cargo for loading from Novorossiisk on Aug. 4-5, which the company bought from Rosneft under long-term agreement.
Tupras closed a tender on Wednesday to buy 80,000 or 140,000 tonnes of Urals or Siberian light.
Traders also thought that Tupras bought 100,000 tonnes of Urals for loading from the Baltic Sea ports for delivery in August. It was not immediately clear if the purchase was done as a part of the buy tender, while the supplier remained unknown.
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