SINGAPORE, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The Asia-Pacific crude
market was steady on Monday, with participants waiting for
trading in April-lifting cargoes to kick-off later this week
once loading programmes are fixed.
Traders said April Kitan crude could trade at levels firmer
than the discount of $4 a barrel to dated Brent seen for March
parcels, as naphtha cracks recover from a recent dip.
* OSP
- Malaysian state oil firm Petronas lowered the Tapis crude
price alpha factor for February liftings to $8.00 per barrel,
down 50 cents from the previous month, trade sources said on
Monday.
The alpha factor is used to calculate the official selling
price (OSP) of Malaysia's main export crude.
Malaysia sets the Tapis OSP on a retroactive basis, by adding
the alpha factor to the month's average dated Brent price.
* AUSTRALIA
- Australia's Woodside Petroleum said on Monday it
had restarted production from its Enfield oil field off the
North West Cape and the Cossack, Wanaea, Lambert and Hermes
(CWLH) oil fields on the North West Shelf after they were shut
in response to Tropical Cyclone Iggy.
The company said production from the Vincent oil field
remained shut.
The Enfield oil field produces around 11,400 barrels per day
(bpd) and CWLH produces 2,500 bpd, while Vincent produces around
14,000 bpd.
Woodside shut the fields in late January. They produced just
under 30,000 bpd of oil in 2011, according to Woodside's most
recent production report.
* TENDERS
- Russia's Sakhalin Energy has offered 730,000 barrels of
light sweet Vityaz crude for April 21-28 loading via tender, a
trader said on Monday.
The tender will close on Feb. 15.
Sakhalin Energy sold one cargo of Vityaz for March 28-April
4 loading last month at a premium of about $5.60 a barrel to
Dubai quotes.
- Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the country's largest refiner, has
issued a rare tender to buy heavy crude for April lifting from
several regions including South America, Africa and the Middle
East, tender documents showed on Monday.
IOC is seeking to buy oil from grades including Bouri,
Enfield, Cano Limon, Marlim, Maya, Mesa 30, Oriente, Vasconia,
Castilla, Schichallion, Khafji, Ras Gharib, Ratawi and Mandji.
Sellers have the option of selling one or more cargoes of up
to 1 million barrels each, with prices to be linked to Dubai FOB
quotes, according to the documents.
IOC has also issued a regular tender to buy sweet crude for
April lifting. Both the tenders will close on Tuesday and bids
will remain valid until Thursday.
* EFS
- Front-month Brent/Dubai Exchange of Futures for Swaps
(EFS) for March DUB-EFS-1M fell 8 cents to $2.97 a barrel.
* MARKET NEWS
- The utilities burned 5.23 million tonnes of liquefied
natural gas (LNG) equivalent last month, up 27.1 percent
year-on-year, while total consumption of direct-burn crude and
fuel oil more than doubled to 637,000 barrels per day, data from
the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan showed.
- China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec)
plans to invest 53 billion yuan ($8.41
billion) by 2015 to boost refinery capacity and build up oil and
gas production in the northwestern Xinjiang region, an industry
website said.
* REFINERY MARGINS
- The complex refining margin for Dubai in Singapore was
$8.97 per barrel, down from an average of the last five days of
$9.85, Reuters data show. Over the last year, the average margin
has been $8.16 cents per barrel.
* CRACK SPREADS
- Fuel oil's March crack fell 48 cents to a discount of
$3.53 a barrel to Dubai crude.
- Gasoil's March crack eased 20 cents to a premium of $17.51
barrel to Dubai crude.
- Naphtha's front-month crack gained 26 cents to a discount
of $5.25 barrel to Brent crude.
* OUTRIGHT PRICES
- March ICE Brent was at $118.25 a barrel by 0830
GMT, up 46 cents from the previous session.
