LONDON: North Sea Forties diffs rose for a second day on Tuesday, boosted by bids from refiner Petroineos.
Petroineos bid for a number of cargoes of Brent, Forties and Ekofisk, all above the most recent levels for those grades, but met with no sellers.
Forties diffs hit their highest since January 2016 last week, driven by demand from Asia that has been strong enough to absorb a large overhang of unused crude that had built up on ships over July and August.
The market has also got a boost from trading house Glencore, which bought at least seven September-loading cargoes in the past few weeks and has snapped up at least two loading in October.
The company's shipping arm has booked the VLCC Ingrid to take Forties to South Korea next month and traders have attributed a lot of the strength at the front end of the physical market curve to Glencore's recent buying spree.
Trading participants in the North Sea market often build up large physical positions of cargoes for operational reasons, but this can create a dearth of readily available cargoes.
So far this month, two VLCCs, the Gener8 Supreme and the Boston, are sailing east and a further two are scheduled to do so, roughly in line with August, when four supertankers sailed to China, Singapore and South Korea, based on trading sources and Reuters data.
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