SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks fell on Tuesday while Russian ESPO traded at the highest premium in 7 months, supported by robust demand from China and Japan.

DME Oman's premium to Dubai swaps fell to $2.84 a barrel, dropping below $3 for the first time since May 8.

MIDDLE EAST: Japan's Fuji Oil bought two Upper Zakum crude cargoes at premiums close to 80 cents a barrel to its official selling price via a tender on Friday, trade sources said.

BP and Total continued to offer Abu Dhabi grades on RIM and Platts.

Total offered Das for July 1-25 loading at 55 cents a barrel above its OSP on RIM and another cargo for July-loading at a premium of 60 cents on Platts.

BP offered an Upper Zakum crude cargo on Platts at 55 cents above its OSP and reduced premium to 60 cents a barrel from 65 cents for its July 1-25 loading Murban cargo offer on RIM.

Separately, ONGC Videsh has sold Das crude supplies for loading between July this year and March 2020 from Abu Dhabi at a premium of 15-18 cents a barrel above its OSP, trade sources said.

The 5.2 million barrels of Das crude was sold to a major trading company, they said.

 

RUSSIA: Russia's Surgutneftegaz sold two cargoes of ESPO Blend crude for end-June to early July loading at the highest premiums in seven months, several trade sources said.

The ESPO cargoes were sold via a tender at $4.60-$4.70 a barrel above Dubai quotes, likely to a Chinese oil major and a Japanese trading house, the sources said. The cargoes will load on June 30-July 5 and on July 3-8.

The oil's exports in June have been revised upward by 0.2 million tonnes compared with the preliminary schedule, to 2.74 million tonnes, a revised loading schedule seen by Reuters showed.

Two cargoes of 100,000 tonnes each, one by Lukoil and one by small producers, were added to the plan, according to the document.

ExxonMobil sold two Sokol cargoes loading in July at premiums close to $6 a barrel to Dubai quotes, while ONGC sold a cargo to load on July 22-28, to Trafigura at $5.50 a barrel to Dubai quotes, traders said. 

For Russian Urals, trading companies Vitol and Unipec are sending around 700,000 tonnes of the contaminated crude to Asia in an attempt to place the barrels rejected by buyers in Europe, according to trading sources and ship tracking data. 

 

ASIA-PACIFIC CRUDE: PV Oil offered Bunga Kekwa and Bunga Orkid crude via tenders, while Santos offered Varanus crude for July-loading.

 

REFINERY

A string of European refinery outages after contamination forced the shutdown of Russia's Druzhba crude pipeline has constrained fuel supply across the continent and delivered an unexpected boost to profit margins. 

 

NEWS

Total and Eni have stopped payments for the contaminated oil sold to them by Russian firms and said they will only pay when compensation is agreed, trading sources said, upping the stakes in what the sources say is Russia's worst oil supply disruption. 

OPEC and its allies are considering moving the date of their next oil policy meeting in Vienna to July 3-4 from June 25-26, two OPEC sources said on Monday. 

Nigeria's Trans Forcados pipeline remains closed but no force majeure has been declared, a Shell spokeswoman said on Tuesday, after a fire broke out on Sunday. 

China National Petroleum Corp is planning to open dozens of petrol stations in Myanmar, the first major foreign investor to enter the fast-growing Southeast Asian fuel market, as the state giant expands its retail oil business, company officials said. 

Greenpeace activists blocked the entrance to BP's London headquarters on Monday, demanding one of the world's biggest energy companies ends all new oil and gas exploration or goes out of business. 

(Reporting by Florence Tan and Olga Yagova; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu) ((Florence.Tan@thomsonreuters.com; +65 6870 3497; Reuters Messaging: florence.tan.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))