Middle East crude benchmark spot premiums of Dubai and Murban eased on Monday as oil prices slipped following 6% gains in the prior week.

Spot premium for Oman gained for a third session to an over three-week high.

Taiwan’s CPC bought 4 million barrels of WTI Midland crude for February arrival via a tender on Friday, trade sources said.

Aramco Trading and Trafigura sold 2 million barrels each at premiums of $3.10-3.20 per barrel to January dated Brent prices on a cost and freight basis, they added.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS

Cash Dubai’s premium to swaps fell 4 cents to $0.83 a barrel.

Vitol will deliver a January-loading Upper Zakum crude cargo to TotalEnergies following the deals.

Mitsui will deliver a January-loading Oman crude cargo to PetroChina following the deals.

Unipec will deliver a January-loading al-Shaheen crude cargo to TotalEnergies following the deals.

NEWS

China has issued an additional crude oil import quota of at least 5.84 million metric tons (116,800 barrels per day) to independent refiners for cargoes arriving by end-2024 and in early 2025, people familiar with the situation said on Monday.

Kazakhstan is considering shipping a significant part of its oil exports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline in the medium term, Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliyev said on Monday.

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the energy department believes fossil fuels are the key to ending world poverty, which, he says, is a greater problem than climate change’s “distant” threat, according to a report he penned as CEO of oilfield services company Liberty Energy LBRT.N.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Siyi Liu and Florence Tan in Singapore)