SINGAPORE Jan 10 (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific sweet crude may come under pressure as more Western oil could head East as the Brent marker fell and as demand for March shrank after Indonesia, one of the key buyers, skipped its monthly buy tender. Yet, Indonesian and Vietnamese grades could remain supported by strong demand from Japanese power plants. "This winter is very cold and people are using a lot of electricity," a Japanese trader said. Gazprom's bid for Minas on Platts and RIM has lifted the Indonesia Crude Price (ICP) and Minas formula to about $6 and $3.50 a barrel above Brent, respectively, a second trader said. * EFS - Brent crude's premium to Middle East Dubai fell on Tuesday to the lowest in nearly one month as the European marker came under pressure from weaker buying interest in the region and a lack of demand to ship barrels to Asia. Front-month Brent/Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS) for February DUB-EFS-1M fell 44 cents from Monday to $3.18 a barrel. The narrowing EFS could open the West-to-East arbitrage window again. Vitol and Statoil have booked supertankers to load 4 million barrels of North Sea crude to head East in January, doubling the volume to Asia to 8 million barrels in the first quarter this year on open arbitrage and a tax incentive in South Korea. * TENDERS - PV Oil offered 250,000 barrels of Song Doc crude for loading on March 15-21. The tender will close on Jan. 17 with bids valid until a day later. - Petral re-offered 150,000 barrels of Geragai condensate for Feb. 27-28 loading as it received low bids in the first tender. The second tender will close on Jan. 12 with bids valid until a day later. * MARKET NEWS - The average nuclear plant utilisation rate at 10 Japanese power firms fell to 38.0 percent last year, down from 68.3 percent in 2010, a Reuters calculation based on monthly trade ministry data showed. - China's crude oil imports in December rose five percent from a year earlier to 5.16 million barrels per day (bpd), easing off from November when imports hit their second-highest on record, preliminary customs data showed. - The United Arab Emirates has delayed the launch of a crucial oil pipeline to bypass the Straits of Hormuz to mid-2012, which analysts said would add to supply worries at a time when Iran threatens to block the strait for all the Gulf's oil. - The European Union is expected to bring forward a meeting of foreign ministers due to decide on an oil embargo on Iran by one week to Jan. 23, EU diplomats said. - Rates for dirty tankers on key Asian freight routes are expected to rise this week on strong Chinese crude buying, while clean tankers will likely ease due to an oversupply of vessels, ship brokers said. - An explosion at an oil well in central Yemen operated by a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Hunt Oil Company has stopped output from the field, a Yemeni oil ministry official said. * REFINERY MARGINS - Simple gross refining margins for Dubai in Singapore were at 81 cents per barrel, up from an average of the last five days of 46 cents, Reuters data show. Over the last year, the average margin has been about minus 86 cents per barrel. * CRACK SPREADS - Fuel oil's April crack narrowed $1.35 to a discount of $11.57 a barrel to Dubai crude. - Gasoil's April crack rose 8 cents to a premium of $20.68 a barrel to Dubai crude. - The naphtha CFR Japan front-month crack rose 36 cents to a discount of $4.47 a barrel to Brent on lower crude prices. * OUTRIGHT PRICES - February ICE Brent was at $113.05 a barrel at 0830 GMT, down 63 cents from Monday. (Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Manash Goswami)

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