SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks extended gains on Tuesday, supported by strong demand from Shell.

The oil major bought all of the 35 August Dubai partials that traded on Platts window although no cargo was delivered.

The deals were done between $61.25 and $61.29 a barrel. Cash Dubai's premium to swaps was assessed at $2.15 a barrel, up 6 cents.

OSPs: Kuwait raised the official selling prices (OSPs) for two crude grades it sells to Asia in July, trade sources said on Tuesday.

The producer has set July Kuwait Export Crude (KEC) price at $1.65 a barrel above the average of Oman/Dubai quotes, up 50 cents from the previous month.

It also raised the July Kuwait Super Light Crude (KSLC) OSP to $3 a barrel above Oman/Dubai quotes, up 40 cents.

The price hike for KEC was in line with Saudi's Arab Medium crude in the same month.

Iraq has raised the July official selling price (OSP) for Basra Light crude to Asia by 50 cents to plus $2.10 a barrel against the average of Oman/Dubai quotes from the previous month, a source with knowledge of the matter said.

Basra Heavy to Asia in the same month was priced at minus $0.70 a barrel to Oman/Dubai quotes, up 70 cents from the previous month.

ASIA-PACIFIC CRUDE: Santos Ltd has issued a tender to sell 400,000 barrels of Van Gogh crude for loading on Aug. 7-11, trade sources said.

Santos has set a target price of $12.60 a barrel premium to dated Brent in the tender, they said.

The tender will close on June 12.

Santos sold a June-loading Van Gogh crude cargo at a premium of more than $9 a barrel. 

Van Gogh is one of Australia's heavy sweet crudes that have been sold at record premiums over the past several months.

Traders snapped up the oil for blending with fuel oil in preparation for the new regulations for low-sulphur marine oil ahead of implementation of IMO 2020. 

 

TENDERS CRU/TENDA

Japan's METI has sold 270,000 kilolitres (1.7 million barrels) of Kuwaiti heavy crude Khafji for sale from its strategic petroleum reserves (SPR), trade sources said.

The cargo was sold to Japanese trading company Marubeni Corp 8002.T at a premium of about 11 cents a barrel to the grade's official selling price (OSP), they said.

The cargo will load between July 25 and Sept. 30 from the Shibushi SPR in Kagoshima.

Marubeni may sell the cargo to an end-user in South Korea and India as Japan's demand is low due to refinery maintenance, one of the sources said.

 

REFINERY

PetroChina's Liaoyang Petrochemical, a 10 million tonnes per year plant that specialises in processing Russian crude oil, has been shut down for major maintenance, the company said on its website. 

 

NEWS

There is a still a risk that oil producers pump out too much crude and prices fall sharply, Russia's energy minister said on Monday, suggesting Moscow might support an extension of output cuts at a meeting of leading oil producing countries next month. 

Global prices for diesel and marine fuels should rise by October ahead of a January switchover to new, very low-sulfur marine fuels, and remain higher for at least a year as refiners shift production to make more of the new fuels, analysts said. 

Compensation for the tainted Russian oil supplied to Europe earlier this year via the Druzhba pipeline and in cargoes will be decided company by company, Russia's Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin told Reuters.

 

(Reporting by Florence Tan, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips) ((Florence.Tan@thomsonreuters.com; +65 6870 3497; Reuters Messaging: florence.tan.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))