SINGAPORE: The Asia-Pacific market is turning its attention to regional import tenders after most June-loading regional cargoes have been sold.
Australian June loading programmes have mostly cleared, with just a cargo of ultra-light sweet Cossack crude thought to remain on offer, while a handful of June-loading Malaysian crude cargoes also remain unsold.
THAILAND: Traders are awaiting Thailand's state-oil firm PTT to issue its monthly IRPC crude import tender. The upcoming tender is likely to seek sweet crude for end-June to early-July delivery. The Thai tender is often seen as an important source of demand for traders to sell cargoes into from the preceding trading cycle.
The Rayong-based refiner bought mainly regional grades in its most recent tender seeking end-May to early-June cargoes, helping to clear some of the regional supply overhang.
AUSTRALIA - PYRENEES: More details on the buyer of BHP Billiton's June 10-14 Pyrenees cargo emerged on Thursday. Chinese refiner CNOOC had taken the cargo at around $1.60-1.80 per barrel above dated Brent. A second Pyrenees cargo marketed by Quadrant Energy was also sold to a Chinese buyer, although details of the buyer are unclear.
AUSTRALIA - VAN GOGH, VARANUS: Quadrant Energy has likely sold its June-loading Van Gogh and Varanus crude to a trader in a deal that will see both cargoes co-loaded on a vessel, two trading sources said. Deal details were not immediately clear.
BRENT-DUBAI EFS: Brent's premium to Dubai swaps  was at $0.46 per barrel, down 21 cents for June.
REFINERY
Japan's biggest oil refiner JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corp said on Thursday it would conduct scheduled maintenance shutdown on the 90,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) No.3 crude distillation unit (CDU) at Mizushima-B refinery from May 31 to late July.
MARKET NEWS
China's top state planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), will stop accepting applications from oil refiners to use imported crude oil from May 5, it said on its website on Thursday.
The oil market is moving towards rebalancing helped by improving supply and demand fundamentals and an OPEC-led supply cut pact, the chief executive of Saudi Aramco said on Thursday.
The first ever reported export of North Dakota's crude oil to Asia left port last month, according to a shipping document seen by Reuters on Wednesday, in what is expected to be the first of numerous cargoes once the key Dakota Access pipeline starts moving oil in May.
OPEC, NON-OPEC NEWS
Iraq will go with the consensus reached by OPEC when the exporting group meets in Vienna next month to discuss an extension of the group's deal on production cuts, the country's oil minister said on Thursday.
Shale oil output in the United States is rising much faster than expected and gaining market share globally, increasing the risk of a "volume war" with OPEC and weaker oil prices, the founder of oil and gas consultancy Rystad Energy said.
Libya's Sharara oilfield, with a production capacity of around 330,000 barrels per day, is back online after protests blocking pipelines there ended, a Libyan oil source said on Thursday.
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