SINGAPORE, July 6 (Reuters) - Middle East crude traders assessed the appetite for Saudi crude after the kingdom raised the official selling prices (OSPs) by more than what Asian refiners and traders had expected. Saudi Arabia set the OSP for Arab Extra Light at the average of Oman and Dubai plus $2.70 a barrel for August, up 50 cents from July against an expectation of a cut of 50 cents. With the regional market well supplied with oil, participants are looking out for signs of Asian refiners to exercise the option to cut intake from the kingdom by the 10 percent allowed in annual term contracts. Saudi Aramco will announce crude allocations by July 10. Oil fell below $100 a barrel on Friday on expectations the Norwegian government would end an oil workers' strike and as enthusiasm over central bank rate cuts waned. *TRADES - Trafigura sells a Dubai partial to Mercuria at $97.60 a barrel. *MARKET NEWS - India's oil imports from Iran fell 18.2 percent in June from a year earlier in a third straight monthly decline, although the pace slowed as refiners built stocks ahead of Western sanctions against Tehran's nuclear programme that took effect by July. - Libya's crude oil output has fallen by 300,000 barrels a day to around 1.3 million for a combination of reasons, including political protests disrupting operations a day ahead of national elections, the chairman of the National Oil Corporation said on Friday. - Turkey's energy ministry has started technical work with Iraq's central government on shipping crude oil from Basra in southern Iraq via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline to Turkey's Mediterranean coast and on to world markets, its minister said on Friday. - Showa Shell Sekiyu KK, Japan's fifth-largest refiner, said on Friday it expects to refine 17 percent less crude oil in total for domestic consumption and exports in the July-September quarter than a year earlier. - Iran and the United States might be talking up their readiness for war in the Gulf but beneath the rhetoric, all sides appear keen to avoid conflict and prevent accidental escalation - at least for now. CRUDE Price Prev Change SEP DME Oman diff to Dubai swaps 1.05 0.92 -0.13 AUG Brent 99.94 100.46 -0.52 SEP Dubai 96.86 97.28 -0.42 SEP DME Oman 97.91 98.20 -0.29 AUG Brent/Dubai EFS 2.82 2.93 -0.11 PRODUCT CRACKS Price Prev Change AUG fuel oil crack -3.52 -3.13 -0.40 AUG gasoil crack 17.39 16.76 0.63 AUG naphtha crack -9.16 -10.46 1.30 COMPLEX REFINERY MARGINS Today 6.51 Last 5 days 5.93 Last 365 days 7.33 (Reporting By Manash Goswami; editing by Miral Fahmy)

Source