SINGAPORE, June 22 (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific crude fell on
Friday, facing stiffer competition from a wide variety of
Atlantic Basin grades that could head East as the arbitrage
window is wide open.
Refiners are taking their time to evaluate a wide variety of
grades available and this will likely slow down trade in August,
a trader said.
"There is a barrage of competing grades out there. It's a
buyers' market," the trader added.
* TENDERS
- Murphy Oil sold 600,000 barrels of Malaysian Kikeh crude
to load on Aug. 9-14. It was sold to an oil major at $6.50-$7.00
a barrel above dated Brent, traders said, about $2 lower in
premium than the previous month.
Kikeh's premium was last at this level in September 2011.
- Vietnam's PV Oil sold a cargo of Ruby crude for August
loading at a stable premium from the previous month, traders
said.
The 350,000-barrel cargo for Aug. 15-21 loading was sold to
BP at about $1 a barrel above the Minas formula, they said.
- Petronas offered 300,000 barrels of Muda condensate for
loading on Aug. 5-11. The tender closes on June 26 with bids
valid until a day later.
- Petral, the trading unit of Indonesian state-run energy
firm Pertamina, has bought 1.8 million barrels of sweet crude
for August delivery, trade sources said.
The company bought 600,000 barrels each of Libyan Amna and
El-Sharara, and Algeria's Saharan Blend from national oil
companies, they said. Prices were not immediately available.
- Taiwan's CPC Corp has bought Angolan and Azeri crude via a
tender to buy August loading light crude, traders said.
CPC bought two cargoes of Angolan Nemba from Chevron and
Total and three cargoes of Angolan Cabinda from Chevron and Eni.
It also bought Azeri Light from Socar.
Each Angolan cargo contains 950,000 barrels of crude oil.
The size of the Azeri Light cargo was not immediately clear.
* MARKET NEWS
- Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corp has renewed its
annual oil purchase deal with Iran but cut the loading volume to
comply with U.S. sanctions against the Islamic nation, trade
sources said.
- Pan American Energy LLC has halted oil production at
Argentina's biggest field, Cerro Dragon, after about 500 workers
took over some facilities there, a company source said.
- U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil said it will reconfigure its
Fawley refinery, Britain's largest, permanently decommissioning
one crude distillation unit.
CRUDE Price Prev Change
AUG Brent 89.43 91.52 -2.09
AUG Brent/Dubai EFS DUB-EFS-1M 1.50 1.54 -0.04
PRODUCT CRACKS Price Prev Change
JULY fuel oil crack -0.62 -0.81 0.19
JULY gasoil crack 17.42 17.12 0.30
AUG naphtha crack -10.82 -11.83 1.01
COMPLEX REFINERY MARGINS
Today 6.14
Last 5 days 4.80
Last 365 days 7.41
(Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
