Middle East crude benchmarks Oman, Dubai and Murban dropped nearly $1 a barrel on Tuesday on slow demand from Asian buyers.
Demand is weak particularly for medium grades, traders said. Strict COVID-19 policy in top importer China, which has been hurting oil consumption, is unlikely to ease soon, they said, while Chinese refiners are also unlikely to ramp up output in January because of Lunar New Year holidays.
Qatar Energy is due to award its tenders on Wednesday and may sell its al-Shaheen crude for December-loading at lower premiums than the previous month, they said.
Taiwanese refiner CPC Corp has closed a tender to buy crude for December-loading. It has likely bought Upper Zakum crude from TotalEnergies, traders said.
ASIA-PACIFIC CRUDE
Vietnam’s PV Oil has sold a 300,000-barrel Chim Sao crude cargo for December-loading at a premium of just under $10 a barrel, likely to Vitol, traders said.
NEWS
China is likely this month to export the highest volume of diesel, aviation fuel and gasoline since June 2021 at more than 4 million tonnes, after Beijing’s surprise release of a big batch of quotas, analysts and trading sources said.
The Biden administration plans to sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to dampen fuel prices before next month’s congressional elections, three sources familiar with the matter said on Monday.
India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp ONGC.NS plans to take a stake in the new Russian entity that will manage the Sakhalin 1 project in the far east as it seeks to retain a 20% share in the asset, three sources familiar with the matter said.
Exxon Mobil Corp XOM.N said on Monday that it left Russia completely after President Vladimir Putin expropriated its properties following seven months of discussions over an orderly transfer of its 30% stake in a major oil project.
Oil output in the Permian in Texas and New Mexico, the biggest U.S. shale oil basin, is forecast to rise by about 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) to a record 5.453 million bpd in November, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its productivity report on Monday.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)