SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks Oman and Dubai fell on Monday on weak demand amid increasing fears that the global coronavirus shutdown could last months.
Brent's discount to Dubai swaps widened by $1.21 to $5.75 a barrel, setting a new record since at least 2004 when the data became available, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.
ExxonMobil offered a cargo of Upper Zakum crude loading between May 1 and May 25 at a discount of $5.15 a barrel to Dubai quotes, but did not attract any buyers.
ASIA-PACIFIC CRUDE:
Petronas has sold a 320,000-barrel cargo of Cakerawala condensate, loading between May 5 and May 14, at a discount of around $1 to dated Brent to an oil major.
REFINERY
Asia's top refiner China Petroleum Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, expects that its full-year 2020 refining runs will be lower than in 2019 because of a contraction in Chinese fuel demand caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Japan's biggest refiner, JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corp, restarted the 120,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Marifu refinery on March 27 after scheduled maintenance, a spokeswoman said on Monday.
NEWS
Russia's largest oil producer, Rosneft, said on Saturday it had terminated operations in Venezuela and sold the assets linked to its operations in the South American nation to an unnamed company owned by the Russian government.
Supertanker freight rates are on the rise for a second time this month as producers, refiners and traders scramble to secure ships to transport crude or store a fast-growing global glut of oil, industry sources said.
Norway's Equinor said on Monday its Johan Sverdrup oilfield is ramping up output at a faster pace and will produce more barrels per day than initially expected.
(Reporting By Shu Zhang; Editing by Shailesh Kuber) ((shu.zhang@thomsonreuters.com; +65-6870-3549; Reuters Messaging: Twitter @shuzhang4))
