Regional grades could find some support as inflows of Atlantic basin cargoes were limited by high freight rates and an expected tightness of sweet grades in the Mediterranean following supply disruptions at Libya's two biggest oil export ports.
Petroleum Brunei sold 600,000 barrels of Kimanis crude loading Feb. 1-10 in a tender to Shell at around $3.70-$3.90 a barrel above dated Brent, a trader said.
Shell also bought 300,000 barrels of the grade loading in February from Petronas at a premium of around $3.50 a barrel, another trader said.
Shell, the field operator, has yet to release the crude assay specifying the quality of the grade. The assay may be delayed until January, a trader said.
Kimanis is considered to be of similar quality to Labuan and Kikeh but last month traded at a discount of more than $1.50 a barrel to those grades as refiners tested the new grade.
Trafigura was said to be trying to put together a VLCC shipment of Forties to South Korea in early January, although no fixture had yet emerged.
Brent-Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS), or Brent's premium to Dubai swaps, narrowed 15 cents to $2.15 a barrel. The February spread was unchanged at $1.95 a barrel.
REFINERY
Japanese oil refiner TonenGeneral Sekiyu KK said on Monday it had resumed normal operations of the sole 156,000 barrels per day (bpd) crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Sakai refinery in western Japan.
MARKET NEWS
South Korea's imports of Iranian crude oil rose 6.5 percent in November from a year earlier, but shipments for the first 11 months of the year were still below the 2013 average, in line with international sanction requirements.
Crude oil supplies from Saudi Arabia inched up in November from a month earlier, an industry source said on Friday, signalling no change in the Kingdom's supply, despite a global oil glut and a steep fall in prices.