SINGAPORE Dec 20 (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific crude market rose on Tuesday after key Malaysian grades were sold at steady to higher premiums than the previous month on limited supply, slight recovery in refining margins and a lower dated Brent price reference.
* TENDERS
- Murphy Oil sold 600,000 barrels of Malaysian Kikeh crude for loading in February to an unknown buyer at $9.00-$9.50 a barrel above dated Brent, sharply higher than a premium of around $8 a barrel in the previous month.
The cargo could eventually be sold to Interoil, a refiner in Papua New Guinea, a trader said, although this could not be confirmed.
Interoil has limited crude choices so it could have paid more for this cargo, a second trader said.
- Malaysia's Petronas sold 600,000 barrels of Labuan crude for February lifting to Shell at around $8.50 a barrel above dated Brent, a steady premium from last month.
- India's ONGC issued a tender to sell 620,000 barrels of Sudanese Nile Blend crude for loading on Jan. 16-31. The tender will close on Dec. 21 with bids valid until a day later.
- Front-month Brent/Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS) for February DUB-EFS-1M rose 20 cents from Thursday to $3.75 a barrel.
* MARKET NEWS
- Sudan will invite bids from firms to operate in six new oil and gas blocks early next year, the oil minister said, as the country moves to compensate for the loss of the crude-producing south.
- China's top refiner Sinopec Corp will in January buy less than half the crude it typically imports from Iran, trade sources said, as the two haggle over terms against a backdrop of rising international pressure on Tehran.
- Production at major North Sea field Gullfaks will be lower than normal again in 2012, Norway's Statoil said, repeating previous guidance and adding it had reopened some wells that had been closed due to safety concerns.
- Russia's Surgutneftegaz said it had launched production at a greenfield in East Siberia, a region crucial for stable oil output in the world's top energy producer.
* REFINERY MARGINS
- Complex processing margins for Dubai in Singapore were around $7.07 per barrel, down from an average of the last five days of $7.21, Reuters data show. Over the last year, the average margin has been around $8.19 per barrel.
* CRACK SPREADS
- Fuel oil's January crack narrowed $1.26 to a discount of $2.09 a barrel to Dubai crude.
- Gasoil's January crack fell 73 cents to a premium of $17.66 a barrel to Dubai crude.
- The naphtha CFR Japan front-month crack narrowed 9 cents to a discount of $6.27 a barrel to Brent.
* OUTRIGHT PRICES
- February ICE Brent was at $104.65 a barrel at 0830 GMT, up $1.64 from Monday. (Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Manash Goswami)
