Middle East crude benchmark spot premiums of Oman, Dubai and Murban moved little on Tuesday as light trading activities persisted.

Saudi Arabia’s crude oil supply to China is set to slide in March from the prior month, trade sources said on Tuesday, after the kingdom hiked its prices to the highest in more than two years.

Saudi Aramco 2222 will ship about 41 million barrels to China in March, a tally of allocations to Chinese refiners showed, down from February’s 43.5 million barrels. The figure marks a second consecutive monthly drop of the state oil firm’s allocation to China.

Chinese state major Sinopec 600028 and Aramco’s joint venture, the Fujian refinery, will be lifting less crude in March, while Aramco will increase its supply to PetroChina 601857 and private refiner Shenghong Petrochemical, the trade sources said.

REFINERY

State-run Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) HINDPETRO plans to increase the capacity of its Vizag oil refinery in southern India by as much as 20% to meet growing local fuel demand, its chairman Rajneesh Narang said.

NEWS

BP BP. reported quarterly profit of $1.17 billion on Tuesday, weaker than expected and the lowest in four years, while the company promised to reset its strategy, after news broke at the weekend that investor Elliott Management had built up a stake.

Activist Elliott Investment Management has built an over $2.5 billion stake in U.S. oil refiner Phillips 66 PSX.N and plans to push for operational changes to boost its stock, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.

U.S. sanctions on Russia should not affect Moscow’s oil trade with India, Pavel Sorokin, Russia’s first deputy energy minister, said on Tuesday, adding that it was too early to assess the impact of the latest restrictions.

U.S. crude oil and gasoline stockpiles were expected to have risen last week, while distillate inventories likely fell, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Monday.
Source: Reuters