Middle East crude benchmarks Oman and Dubai were mixed on Tuesday, as concerns on refining margins in Asia remained and fixed price gains were evident in the afternoon trading session.

Speculations of run cuts regionally were mostly due to maintenance of refining units, with a handful of refiners still mulling real run cuts stemming from narrower refining margins, one source said.

Complex refining margins in Singapore were still trading in positive territory at the market’s close of $3.22 a barrel DUB-SIN-REF.

On the Brent-Dubai swap front, the exchange of futures for swaps (EFS) value closed at $1.91 a barrel – down by almost 30 cents from the previous session. Some analysts had expected some softening on the Brent front as prompt market short-covering came to an end.

In the near-term, low inventories in the West will likely provide sentiment support even in the Asia region.
On the window, Trafigura is set to deliver one cargo of Upper Zakum cargo for November to Mitsui.

INVENTORIES:

– U.S. crude oil and distillate stockpiles were expected to have fallen last week, while gasoline inventories likely rose, a preliminary Reuters poll showed on Monday.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS

Cash Dubai’s premium to swaps fell 2 cents to $1.80 a barrel.

REFINERY REF/OUT

– Russia’s Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil processing, petrochemical and fertiliser complex located in the Bashkortostan region announced major maintenance.

NEWS

– French oil major TotalEnergies TTEF.PA has signed an agreement to deliver liquefied natural gas to South Korea’s HD Hyundai Chemical from 2027 to 2033, it said on Tuesday.

– U.S. oil producers were scrambling on Monday to evacuate staff from Gulf of Mexico oil production platforms as the second major hurricane in two weeks was predicted to tear through offshore oil producing fields.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Trixie Yap; Editing by Varun H K)