SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks rebounded on Thursday with DME Oman's premium to Dubai swaps rising above $3 a barrel for the first time since October as traders focused on tight supply.

OSPs: Iraq has raised the June official selling price (OSP) for Basra Light crude to Asia by 60 cents to plus $1.60 a barrel against the average of Oman/Dubai quotes from the previous month, a price document obtained by Reuters showed. 

Basra Heavy to Asia in the same month was priced at minus $1.40 a barrel to Oman/Dubai quotes, up 80 cents from the previous month.

MALAYSIA: Shell plans to carry out maintenance at an oilfield offshore Sabah in eastern Malaysia, reducing the volume of Kimanis crude exports in July, industry sources said. 

Kimanis is Malaysia's largest export grade and the drop in shipments is expected to tighten Asian crude supplies.

Work at the Gumusut-Kakap oilfield could last for 27 days and will reduce Kimanis crude exports to three cargoes in July to early August, down from eight cargoes in June, one of the sources said.

The July work will include maintenance on Gumusut-Kakap's topside and development of a phase-2 project that is expected to add 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) of production when it hits its peak, the source said.

Output from Gumusut-Kakap is expected to rebound to 160,000 bpd in August when works are completed, including initial barrels from phase-2, the source said. This will bring total Kimanis production to 220,000 bpd in the same month.

PRICES ($/BBL)

CURRENT PREV SESSION DME OMAN 69.85 69.98 DME OMAN DIFF TO DUBAI 3.04 2.88 CASH DUBAI 69.10 69.25

 

REFINERY

China's Zhejiang Hengyi Group has started preparations for trial runs at its oil refinery in Brunei after importing its first crude cargo for the plant last week, a company spokeswoman said. 

The company imported 80,000 tonnes (584,000 barrels) of Seria Light crude that arrived at the Pulau Muara Besar Terminal on May 2, she said.

Japan's Fuji Oil Co expects to secure alternative crude supplies through term contracts and by tapping the spot market after the U.S. ended waivers on sanctions on Iran, the company's president said. 

 

NEWS

Trading houses Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura are caught in the crossfire between Russian oil producers and Western buyers, which have refused to take contaminated Russian crude bought by the traders. 

At least 10 crude tankers with 1 million tonnes of oil, worth more than $500 million in normal circumstances, are marooned across Europe and still looking for buyers because they have been tainted with organic chloride.

Saudi Arabia is expected to keep its crude exports below 7 million barrels per day in June, while output will stay under its production quota under a global deal to cut oil supply, a Gulf source familiar with Saudi oil plans said. 

Lack of clarity in oil fundamentals will keep Brent crude price volatility high in the next couple months, testing Goldman Sach's expected boundary range of $70-$75/bbl, the bank said. 

China's crude oil imports in April unexpectedly surged to a record despite refinery maintenance outages and tepid domestic fuel demand, customs data showed, as state-run refiners built up stocks of Iranian crude oil anticipating a sanctions clampdown. 

Angola's President Jo?o Lourenço on Wednesday sacked Carlos Saturnino as chair of state energy firm Sonangol in the midst of one of the worst fuel shortages to hit Africa's second-largest crude producer in years. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N22K9Q6

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