RTRS:Middle East Crude-Dubai, Oman signal strong Nov market
SINGAPORE, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Values of Middle East crude
swaps suggested a tight market would lead to an expansion of
spot premiums, traders said on Wednesday, as official selling
prices also pointed to higher prices.
November Oman traded on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange rose
to a premium of $1.27 a barrel to Dubai swap quotes at 0830 GMT,
up 11 cents from Tuesday, using the settlement price for DME
futures, the ICE one-minute marker for Singapore and the
Brent-Dubai EFS as calculated by Reuters.
Some traders said values of November spot Oman cargoes would
reflect the increase in the DME premium, but physical trade was
likely to lag until next week as traders remained focused on
meetings and industry functions in the sidelines of Singapore's
annual Asia-Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC).
Company executives are still upbeat about booming energy
consumption in the region, despite the uncertainty surrounding
the pace of global economic growth.
Newcomers into Asia are vying with more-established oil
suppliers from the Middle East to snatch a bigger slice of a
growing pie, raising little concern among the incumbents about a
potential loss of market share.
* OSPs
- Qatar has cut its August retroactive official selling
price (OSP) for Qatar Marine crude to $105.60 a barrel, down
$4.85 from July, Qatar News Agency said on Tuesday. The Gulf
Arab state also set the August Qatar Land crude OSP at $108.15,
down $4.9 from July.
* EAST-WEST
- The Brent/Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS) for
October slipped 10 cents to $5.05 a barrel at 0830 GMT, Reuters
data showed. The front-month EFS on June 15 touched $9.20, the
highest intraday value since the spread reached a record of
almost $12 in October 2004.
- The premium of October Dubai swaps over November remained
at steep 29 cents, unchanged from Tuesday, indicating strong
buying interest for prompt cargoes.
* MARKET NEWS
- Leading Chinese refineries will raise their crude oil
throughput in September to the highest level this year, after
PetroChina restarted a major crude unit in its largest
Dalian refinery, a Reuters poll showed.
- Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp will restart the last
of three crude distillation units (CDUs) at its refinery by
Thursday after the plant was completely shut in end-July
following a fire, a company spokesman said on Tuesday.
- Kuwait has no plans to boost budget spending in the next
fiscal year, nor does it expect budget cuts in the coming
months, the Gulf Arab country's finance minister said.
- Syria is looking to sell the oil it can no longer export
to Europe to Russia, China and other non-Arab countries, its
finance minister said.
- Japan's commercial crude inventories last week fell 10.5
percent to their lowest since before the March earthquake and
tsunami shut some refineries in the northeast of the country,
reflecting production adjustments at the end of the summer
holiday season.
* REFINERY MARGINS
- Complex processing margins for Dubai in Singapore were
around $8.76 per barrel, down from an average of the last five
days of $10.24, Reuters data show. Over the last year, the
average margin has been around $7.20 per barrel.
* CRACK SPREADS
- Fuel oil's October crack narrowed 11 cents to a discount
of $6.47 a barrel to Dubai crude.
- Gas oil's October crack fell 29 cents to a premium of
$17.50 a barrel to Dubai crude.
- The naphtha CFR Japan front-month crack narrowed 10 cents
to a discount of $6.14 a barrel to Brent.
* OUTRIGHT PRICES
- October ICE Brent LCOc1 was at $113.58 a barrel at 0830
GMT, up $2.60 from Tuesday. [O/
(Reporting by Alejandro Barbajosa; editing by James Jukwey)