SINGAPORE, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific crude spot
differentials gained on Wednesday as sales of Vietnamese Te Giac
Trang and North West Shelf (NWS) condensate attracted robust
demand.
* TENDERS
- Vietnam's PV Oil has sold Te Giac Trang crude for February
using the dated Brent benchmark for the grade for the first time
as it gradually shifts away from the volatile regional Minas
marker.
Two 300,000 barrel cargoes were sold to an oil major and a
trader at premiums near $7 a barrel to dated Brent, traders
said. The cargoes will load on Feb. 10-16 and 21-27.
Only two cargoes are available, one less than the usual
monthly supply, as February is a shorter month.
* TRADE
- Mitsui sold a North West Shelf (NWS) condensate cargo to
load between late February and early March to a South Korean
end-user at around $5.50 a barrel below dated Brent, a narrower
discount than earlier deals at around $6 a barrel.
Condensates values rebounded in February, in line with
improving naphtha cracks, as petrochemical producers replenished
stocks and prompt supply tightened.
* EFS
- Front-month Brent/Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps
(EFS) for January DUB-EFS-1M rose 10 cents from Tuesday to
$3.90 a barrel.
* MARKET NEWS
- Iran threatened on Tuesday to stop the flow of oil through
the Strait of Hormuz if foreign sanctions were imposed on its
crude exports over its nuclear ambitions, a move that could
trigger military conflict with countries dependent on Gulf oil.
- Vietnam's crude oil exports this year are estimated to
have risen 3.6 percent from a year ago to 8.27 million tonnes,
or 166,000 barrels per day, the government said.
- Afghanistan signed a deal with China National Petroleum
Corp (CNPC) on Wednesday for the development of oil blocks in
the Amu Darya basin, a project expected to earn the war-torn
state billions of dollars over two decades.
- Japan's crude imports from Iran tumbled 38 percent last
month to 1.09 million kiloliters (228,000 barrels per day) from
a year earlier, a decline that a source at an importer
attributed to a delay in at least one tanker arrival rather than
sanctions-related problems.
- Inventories of commercial crude oil in Japan last week
fell 3.8 percent from a two-month peak the week before, as
kerosene sales rose from a year earlier for the second week in a
row.
- Swiss oil refiner Petroplus Holdings said lenders had
frozen about $1 billion in borrowing allowances the company
relies on to buy crude oil, meaning supplies for Europe's
largest independent refiner could dry up within days.
* REFINERY MARGINS
- Complex processing margins for Dubai in Singapore were
around $6.96 per barrel, down from an average of the last five
days of $7.52, Reuters data show. Over the last year, the
average margin has been around $8.23 per barrel.
* CRACK SPREADS
- Fuel oil's January crack narrowed 2 cents to a discount of
$3.58 a barrel to Dubai crude.
- Gasoil's January crack fell 13 cents to a premium of
$16.82 a barrel to Dubai crude.
- The naphtha CFR Japan front-month crack widened 63 cents
to a discount of $8.22 a barrel to Brent.
* OUTRIGHT PRICES
- February ICE Brent was at $108.53 a barrel at 0830
GMT, up 38 cents from Tuesday.
(Reporting by Florence Tan, editing by Jane Baird)
