MOSCOW: Urals differentials in northwest Europe hit fresh four-year highs on Wednesday due to the Forties pipeline outage and expectations of low Urals supplies in January.
In the Platts window Vitol bid for 100,000 tonnes of Urals loading on Dec. 23-27 at dated Brent minus $0.10 a barrel. That was 5 cents firmer than Tuesday's bid, but there was no interest, traders said.
Urals differentials in the Baltic hit their highest level since August 2013, when they last traded at a premium to BFOE, Reuters data showed.
The Forties pipeline shutdown early this week, which is expected to last for at least two weeks, comes at a time of limited Urals supplies due to high refinery runs in Russia and a shift in exports to Asia due to Russia's huge supply contract with China.
Both factors could push Urals differentials to new highs, traders said.
There were no bids or offers for Urals in Mediterranean, CPC Blend or Azeri BTC in the Platts window on Wednesday, traders said.
NEWS
Ineos has begun shutting units at its Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland due to the unplanned outage at its Forties North Sea crude pipeline, which threatens to choke the plant's feedstock, industry sources said on Wednesday.
Poland's biggest oil refiner PKN Orlen kicked off a voluntary tender offer to buy the remaining shares in Czech downstream oil group Unipetrol to take full control and delist it from the Prague bourse.
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