Middle East crude benchmarks Oman, Dubai and Murban slipped on Monday as China reported lower-than-expected economic growth data, heightening concerns over fuel demand in the top crude importer.

Physical trades in the spot market were also slow to pick up. Several traders said cargoes from the UAE’s ADNOC are not seen moving so far this month.

The spread between Brent and Dubai narrowed on Monday to $0.75 a barrel, after hitting the widest level in a month of $1.42 a barrel on Thursday.

A relatively cheaper Brent-pegged oil could encourage Asian refiners to haul oil from Atlantic Basin.

Chinese oil refineries, led by heavyweight Sinopec 600028.SS, are set to boost Brazilian crude imports in the third quarter to replace some of the Saudi Arabian supply it cut after the kingdom hiked prices, industry sources said.

In tenders, Qatar Energy sold four cargoes of September-loading Qatar Land crude via its tender last week to Chevron, Eneos, Shell and PTT at a price range of 5 cents to 35 cents over the Dubai quotes.

China’s Rongsheng has put out a buying tender seeking for cargoes to be delivered from mid-September to October. Indonesia’s Pertamina also issued a tender, looking to buy September-arrival West African crude.

OSP

Iran has set the official selling price (OSP) of its Iranian Light crude oil grade for Asian buyers at $3.15 a barrel above the Oman/Dubai average for August, an industry source with knowledge of the matter said on Monday.

The June price is up 15 cents from the previous month.

South Korean refiner Hyundai Oilbank will shut the No. 2 crude distillation unit (CDU) and some downstream derivative production units at its Seosan refinery around mid-August for planned maintenance, four sources familiar with the matter said.

Maintenance work on the 360,000-barrel per day (bpd) CDU will be done from Aug. 10 to Sept. 18, one of the sources said.

NEWS

Production at Libya’s Sharara and El Feel oilfields, which were shut on Thursday following the abduction of a former finance minister, has resumed on Saturday evening, four oil engineers and oil ministry said.

China’s daily oil refinery throughput in June rose 1.6% from a month ago, official data showed on Monday, as refiners resumed operations after completing spring maintenance and ramped up production to meet summer travel demand.

The OPEC+ group’s Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) panel will hold an online meeting on Aug. 3, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted a source as saying on Monday.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Muyu Xu; editing by Eileen Soreng)