Middle East Crude-Benchmarks little changed; Saudi may hike Nov OSPs to Asia

Middle East USA World

Middle East crude benchmarks Oman and Dubai differentials were little changed on Thursday.

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is expected to hike its prices for all crude grades it sells to Asia in November after an attack on its oil facilities led to a spike in Middle East benchmarks last month, industry sources said.

The official selling price (OSP) for flagship Arab Light crude in November is expected to rise by at least 50 cents a barrel from the previous month to the highest since July, a Reuters survey of sources at five Asian refineries showed.

ASIA-PACIFIC CRUDE:

Australia’s Woodside Petroleum has sold two October-loading cargoes of Vincent crude at premiums above $6 a barrel to dated Brent, traders said.

Vietnam’s PV Oil has offered 300,000 barrels of Chim Sao crude to load over Dec. 18-22 in a tender closing on Oct. 9 with bids valid until Oct. 16.

WINDOW

Cash Dubai’s premium to swaps rose 2 cents to $2.62 a barrel.

Seller-Buyer Price PetroDiamond-Shell 57.44 Unipec-Shell 57.44 Reliance-Shell 57.41 Unipec-Shell 57.40 P66-Shell 57.44 Unipec-Koch (Oman) 57.85 Unipec-Shell 57.40 Unipec-Shell 57.40

REFINERY

Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp aims to lower its October average run rate at the 540,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Mailiao refinery to about 70% from more than 87% last month due to maintenance, its spokesman said on Thursday.

NEWS

Saudi Arabia has fully restored oil output after attacks on its facilities last month and is now focused on the listing of Saudi Aramco, its energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N26O1SS

Russia’s Urals crude oil is to be delivered from Primorsk port to China via the Northern Sea Route (NSR) for the first time in history, the port’s operator NCSP Group said in a press release.

Profits from supplying gas and electricity at Britain’s big six energy firms sank by a combined 35 percent last year as they continued to lose customers to smaller rivals, a report by energy market regulator Ofgem said on Thursday.

Venezuela’s oil exports ticked up in September from the previous month, but not enough to reduce high inventories that have forced the country to pare its output, according to Refinitiv Eikon and PDVSA internal data.

South Korea’s top refiner, SK Energy, chartered a supertanker to ship U.S. crude to South Korea in November for a record $10 million as freight rates surge after the United States imposed sanctions on a Chinese firm, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters (Reporting By Shu Zhang; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)