SINGAPORE, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Values in the Middle East crude market fell on Thursday, with March-lifting al-Shaheen and Murban crude transacted at lower premiums. Tasweeq sold at least three cargoes of 600,000 barrels each at premiums of around $2.50 a barrel to Dubai quotes, compared to $2.60-$3.00 in its previous tender, a trader said. Premiums were depressed after Tasweeq offered nine cargoes in the tender, more than the usual five in previous offers, he added. Murban crude traded at a discount of more than 20 cents a barrel, down from a discount of 10-20 cents last week, due to relatively high official selling prices, another trader said. * TENDERS Kenya Petroleum Refineries is seeking one cargo of Murban crude for March arrival via a tender, which closes on Thursday. * TRADES - Arcadia bought three Dubai partials from Shell at $109.94-$111.00 a barrel. * EFS - Front-month Brent/Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps (EFS) for March DUB-EFS-1M edged up 8 cents to $2.81 a barrel. * OMAN ASSESSMENTS - March Oman traded on the DME slipped 20 cents to a premium of $2.53 to Dubai swap quotes at 0830 GMT, using the settlement price for DME futures, the ICE one-minute marker for Singapore and the Brent-Dubai EFS as calculated by Reuters. * MARKET NEWS - Japan's oil industry is likely to cut its purchases of Iranian crude oil in about three months as Tokyo grapples with a new U.S. sanctions law, Akihiko Tembo, president of the Petroleum Association of Japan, said. - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao defended his country's extensive oil imports from Iran against Western pressure to consider sanctions in comments published on Thursday, and yet forthrightly warned Tehran against any effort to acquire nuclear weapons. - Iran's foreign minister warned Arab neighbours on Thursday not to put themselves in a "dangerous position" by allying themselves too closely with Washington in the escalating row over Tehran's nuclear activity. - China's end-December commercial crude oil stocks were down 2.2 percent over the previous month and products inventory gained 6.1 percent, industry newsletter China OGP of Xinhua News Agency said on Thursday. - China's top energy group and its partners Qatar Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell agreed to push ahead with plans for a $12.6 billion refinery and petrochemical complex in east China which is likely to start before similar rival facilities. * REFINERY MARGINS - Simple gross refining margins for Dubai in Singapore were at $2.19 per barrel, up from an average of the last five days of $2.20, Reuters data show. Over the last year, the average margin has been about minus 81 cents per barrel. * CRACK SPREADS - Fuel oil's February crack fell 14 cents to a discount of 30 cents a barrel to Dubai crude. - Gasoil's February crack fell 50 cents to a premium of $17.93 a barrel to Dubai crude. - Naphtha's front-month crack strengthened $1.51 to a discount of $5.73 a barrel to Brent crude. * OUTRIGHT PRICES - March ICE Brent was at $111.29 a barrel at 0830 GMT, down 20 cents from Wednesday. - March Oman fell 48 cents to settle at $111.01.

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