SINGAPORE: The Middle East crude benchmarks rose on Tuesday, close to the highest premiums seen earlier this month, as robust demand in Asia underpinned prices.
IRAQ: Iraq’s May-loading Basra Light crude has been sold at an all-time high premium of just above $1 a barrel to its OSP, traders said.
Japanese refiner JXTG Nippon and Indian refiner IOC bought cargoes at premiums of about $1.10 a barrel to its OSP, they said.
Spot premiums jumped from earlier levels of 40 cents-50 cents after Iraq’s SOMO released May allocation.
Basra Light is highly valued at certain Asian refiners and SOMO may have also cut allocations to some buyers in May, one of the sources said.
UAE: Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is looking to buy 2.5 million barrels per month of condensate to be delivered between July and September via a tender.
ADNOC is seeking a variety of grades of condensate, a type of ultra-light crude oil produced from natural gas fields, from Africa, Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the United States.
The maximum volume for each cargo is 1 million barrels and offers have to be priced against the average of the Platts Dubai quotes in the same month of delivery, ADNOC said in the document.
Offers have to be submitted by April 20, and will remain valid until April 30.
Ruwais, where ADNOC’s refining facilities are located, will receive at least one cargo of US oil each month between February and May, although there was no delivery in April, shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon showed.
The latest shipment is aboard oil tanker ‘Astra’, which loaded about 740,000 barrels of condensate and nearly 200,000 barrels of crude in two separate liftings from Corpus Christi in Texas at end-March and early April, the data showed. The tanker is expected to arrive at Ruwais on May 8.
KUWAIT: Kuwait has lined up supertankers to load 4 million barrels of crude for its joint-venture refinery in Vietnam in April, shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon showed.
Very large crude carrier (VLCC) DS Velvet loaded crude in early April and the tanker is scheduled to arrive at Nghi Son on April 21, while a second VLCC Pis Pioneer is set to load crude at Mina Al Ahmadi on April 26 for delivery to Vietnam on May 9, according to the data.
Kuwait Petroleum International (KPI) Chief Executive Officer Nabil Bourisli said last week that the 200,000-barrel-per-day Nghi Son refinery is expected to reach full production by end-August.
Korea: South Korea’s SK Incheon Petrochem on Tuesday said it would continue boosting purchases of light crude oil to replace Iranian condensate, an ultra-light form of crude, due to rising prices for the Middle Eastern oil.
SK Incheon Petrochem said it will import 3 million barrels of light crude oil for April arrival as an alternative to supplies of Iranian condensate.
Source: Brecorder
