SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks fell on Monday, while trading for September-loading barrels remained slow as traders await results of Qatar's al-Shaheen tender due later this week.

A rebound in Asia's refining margins has provided some support for spot crude differentials with UAE's Murban and Russian Sokol strengthening from earlier deals but overall demand could be weaker as several refiners have scheduled maintenance at their plants.

India's ONGC has sold a second Sokol cargo this month for loading on Sept. 13-19 to Chinaoil at $4.80-$4.90 a barrel above Dubai quotes, up from a premium of $4.40 a barrel in the first tender, traders said. ONGC also cancelled on Monday a tender to sell a cargo loading on Sept. 25-Oct. 1.

Iraq's SOMO has sold two cargoes of Basra crude for August loading at higher premiums via tenders, traders said.

Shell bought 2 million barrels of Basra Light crude at a premium just above $1 a barrel to its official selling price (OSP), while PetroDiamond bought 1 million barrels of Basra Heavy crude at a premium close to $2 a barrel to its OSP, they said.

The cargoes were sold without a fixed destination and were likely to ship to Europe where OSPs were relatively lower, the sources said.

For condensate, China's Forfar Energy has re-issued a tender seeking condensate for September delivery. The new tender will close on Wednesday.

REFINERY

A unit at Shell's Pulau Bukom refinery and petrochemical complex experienced an operational upset on Sunday, a company spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday. 

Phillips 66 was preparing on Sunday to begin a restart on Monday of its southeast Louisiana refinery, which was shut because of the threat of Tropical Storm Barry, the company said. 

NEWS

China's crude oil throughput rose to a record in June, up 7.7% from a year earlier, following the start-up of two new, large refineries, official data showed on Monday. 

Crude processing volumes last month reached 53.7 million tonnes, or about 13.07 million barrels per day (bpd), beating the previous record in April of 12.68 million bpd, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Sinopec said on Monday it has set up a fuel oil company in Sri Lanka as it looks to supply fuel to ships along a major maritime route. 

South Korea imported no crude oil from Iran for a second month in June following the end of a U.S. sanctions wavier, with Iranian imports for the first half dropping 36.9% from a year earlier, customs data showed on Monday. 

British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt told his Iranian counterpart on Saturday that Britain would facilitate the release of the detained Grace 1 oil tanker if Tehran gave guarantees it would not go to Syria. 

Iraq's oil exports from its southern ports have reached 3.42 million barrels per day (bpd) so far in July, two oil officials told Reuters on Monday. 

(Reporting by Florence Tan; Editing by Rashmi Aich) ((Florence.Tan@thomsonreuters.com; +65 6870 3497; Reuters Messaging: florence.tan.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))A ))