SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks eased on Monday which came amid increased trade liquidity in the Platts trading window.

Cash Dubai's premium to swaps fell 67 cents to $1.62 a barrel, while DME Oman's premium to Dubai swaps fell 53 cents to $1.65 a barrel.

Fifteen cash Dubai partials traded on Monday as well as one 500,000-barrel cargo of Upper Zakum crude which Shell sold to BP at 45 cents a barrel above its official selling price (OSP).

On Friday, only two August Dubai partials were traded in the Platts window.

WINDOW

- Reliance declared an August cargo of Upper Zakum to Shell following the convergence of 20 partials in the S&P Global Platts window.

- P66 also declared a similar cargo to Shell following the convergence of 20 partials in the S&P Global Platts window. Seller-Buyer Price

 

LIGHT SWEET SPIKE

- Differentials for light sweet crude in Southeast Asia have soared to multi-year highs with the premium for Kimanis against North Sea Dated surpassing $6 per barrel for the first time, said JBC Energy in a note to clients on Monday.

- This trend has been in place since September last year, when Indonesian government introduced new measures requiring foreign oil companies to offer their oil cargoes produced in Indonesia to state-owned Pertamina first, significantly reducing Indonesian light sweet supplies for the export market, said JBC.

- This has now been exacerbated by lower Malaysian supply, with combined Malaysian and Indonesian crude exports in the first five months of this year averaging only 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), down by 150,000 bpd compared to the same time last year, said the Vienna-based research consultancy.

 

NEWS

- India's oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan expressed concerns about rising crude oil prices to his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Khalid al-Falih, on Friday amid worsening U.S.-Iranian tensions, a government statement said. 

- Global oil prices rose sharply on fears of a U.S. military attack on Iran that would disrupt flows from the Middle East, which provides more than a fifth of the world's oil output.

- Talks between OPEC and its allies next month about whether to extend their pact on cutting oil supplies "won't be easy" and may be complicated by the situation facing Iran and Venezuela, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev said.

- "I think it won't be easy," Bozumbayev told reporters about the talks, in comments cleared for publication on Monday, citing "different positions" among parties to the deal.

- Crude and condensate in long-term floating storage hit its highest since August 2017 in May at 24 million barrels, as U.S. sanctions against Venezuela and Iran hindered the ability of the OPEC members to export, data from analytics firm Vortexa showed. 

- Floating storage rose 15 million barrels in May compared with average levels of May 2018, and levels this month have already reached 26 million barrels, the data showed on Friday.

(Reporting by Roslan Khasawneh; editing by Gopakumar Warrier) ((roslan.khasawneh@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: roslan.khasawneh.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net; +65 6870 3121))C-A ))