Middle East crude benchmarks Oman, Dubai and Murban rose on Thursday as the market expected the supply tightness to deepen as top oil exporter Saudi Arabia may extend its unilateral production reduction for another month.

Saudi Arabia will likely roll over a voluntary oil cut of 1 million barrels per day for a third consecutive month into October, five analysts said, amid uncertainty about supplies and as the kingdom targets drawing down global inventories further.

The talks on Iraqi oil exports via Ceyhan resumption seem still going on as Turkey’s energy minister on Thursday arrived in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Kurdish television channel Rudaw Arabic service posted on X.

Iraq’s oil minister was in Ankara earlier this week where he and his Turkish counterpart failed to reach an agreement to restart Iraq’s northern oil exports which Turkey halted on March 25, sources told Reuters

OSP

Malaysia’s state oil firm Petronas set the monthly price factors for September-loading crude.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS

Cash Dubai’s premium to swaps rose 50 cents to $2.36 a barrel. Glencore will deliver one October al-Shaheen crude to Vitol following the trades.

ASIAN REFINERIES

Shell is considering a sale of its Singapore refining and petrochemical plants as part of a broader strategic review and has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to explore a potential deal, said several sources close to the matter.

NEWS

U.S. officials are drafting a proposal that would ease sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, allowing more companies and countries to import its crude oil, if the South American nation moves toward a free and fair presidential election, according to five people with knowledge of the plans.

U.S. crude oil inventories fell last week as refinery processing surged and crude output reached their highest since the coronavirus pandemic decimated fuel consumption, Energy Information Administration data showed on Wednesday.

Woodside Energy WDS.AX on Thursday reached an in-principle agreement with unions at Australia’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, potentially averting a disruption to supplies from the world’s biggest exporter of the super-chilled fuel.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Muyu Xu; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)