RTRS:Asia-Pacific Crude-Unsold May cargoes weigh on sentiment
SINGAPORE, April 2 (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific crude market is
likely to come under pressure this week as several May cargoes
are still available even though most of the refiners have
completed their purchases.
The available cargoes include light sweet crude such as
Cossack, Kitan and North West Shelf (NWS) condensate and heavy
sweet grades Vincent and Enfield.
Vietnam's PV Oil will award Chim Sao this week, which could
be sold at lower premiums in line with other Vietnamese grades,
on lower demand due to seasonal maintenance at refineries.
* OSPs
- Malaysia and Indonesia, two major oil exporters in Asia,
raised the official selling prices (OSPs) of their crude to the
highest in more than three years on tighter supply and robust
demand from power plants in Japan and Asian refiners, trade
sources said.
Prices could rise further in April for Malaysian grades as
the alpha factor, used in determining OSPs, is likely to hit a
new high after April cargoes were sold at higher premiums
compared with March, they said.
In Indonesia, the Minas OSP MIN-OSP has been calculated at
$131.50 a barrel for March, the highest level since $138.73 in
July 2008.
Malaysia's state oil firm, Petronas, has set the official
selling price for Tapis crude TAP-OSP for March at $133.98 a
barrel, $6.43 a barrel higher than the previous month.
* TENDERS
- More details emerged with regard to Rosneft's ESPO and
ONGC's Sokol tenders.
Rosneft sold its May 19-22 ESPO cargo to BP at a premium of
about $3.50 a barrel to May Dubai quotes while the May 31-June 2
cargo went to Glencore at about $4.80 to June Dubai quotes.
ONGC sold a May 26-29 Sokol cargo to Petraco at about $7.20
a barrel above Oman/Dubai quotes while a May 16-19 cargo went to
BP at a premium of about $7.30 a barrel.
- India's MRPL issued a tender seeking 600,000 barrels of
low sulphur crude for June 1-15 loading. The tender will close
on April 11 with bids valid until April 13.
* MARKET NEWS
- Qatar is currently producing 720,000-730,000 barrels per
day of oil and is running "flat out" in crude and LNG
production, Oil Minister Mohammed Al-Sada said.
- At least three Japanese firms including two oil refiners
will not lift any Iranian crude in April as the third-biggest
buyer of Iranian oil comes under pressure from the United States
to curtail purchases, industry sources said.
- Sudan and South Sudan on Sunday accused each other of
launching attacks in the oil-producing area straddling their
border after talks aimed at ending the worst hostilities since
Juba declared its independence were delayed.
CRUDE Price Prev Change
MAY Brent 122.80 122.90 -0.10
MAY Brent/Dubai EFS DUB-EFS-1M 4.05 4.19 -0.14
PRODUCT CRACKS Price Prev Change
MAY gasoil crack 16.04 16.57 -0.53
MAY fuel oil crack -5.42 -5.63 0.21
MAY naphtha crack -7.56 -7.18 -0.39
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(Reporting by Florence Tan and Osamu Tsukimori in Tokyo;
Editing by Alison Birrane)