SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks Oman and Dubai fell on Wednesday, as Russian ESPO crude softened and some Persian Gulf sour grades were traded at spot discounts.

Qatar Petroleum (QP) sold two cargoes of al-Shaheen crude, loading Oct. 1-2 and Oct. 28-29, at an average discount of around 60 cents a barrel to Dubai quotes to JXTG and HMEL via its monthly tender, traders said.

QP set the October al-Shaheen price for term buyers at a discount of 58 cents a barrel to Dubai.

QP also sold condensate at spot discounts of above $3 to Dubai quotes, traders said. Further details were not yet clear.

Japan's Fuji Oil bought an October-loading cargo of UAE's Upper Zakum crude at a discount of 60-70 cents a barrel to its official selling price (OSP) via a tender, traders said. Further details were not yet available.

September-loading Iraqi Basra Light crude has bounded back to small spot premiums from last month's discounts as Unipec and Tupras recently bought the grade at premiums of 0-20 cents to its OSP, traders said.

October-loading Murban crude was traded at spot discounts of around 50-60 cents a barrel to OSP, while Das Blend crude was traded at discounts of around 80-90 cents a barrel, traders said.

 

 

RUSSIAN CRUDE:

Russia's Surgut sold three cargoes of ESPO Blend crude, loading Oct. 11-18, Oct. 15-22 and Oct. 18-25, at lower premiums of 20-40 cents a barrel via its second tender this month, traders said. Trading house Gunvor bought two of the cargoes. 

Surgut offered two more ESPO cargoes loading Oct. 22-29 and Oct. 26-31 via its third tender closing later on Wednesday.

Russia's Rosneft offered one ESPO cargo loading Sept. 25-30 via a spot tender closing on Thursday with bids valid till Aug. 26.

ESPO crude exports from the Far East Kozmino port are set at 8 million tonnes for October-December 2020, down from 8.6 million planned for loading in July-September.

 

REFINERY

Indian Oil Corp, the country's top refiner, is close to winning its first contract to export up to 720,000 tonnes of clean products to Mauritius under an annual deal from November, two sources familiar with the matter said. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2FL1RX

 

NEWS

OPEC oil producers and allies such as Russia, a grouping dubbed OPEC+, meets on Wednesday to review compliance with oil cuts meant to support oil prices amid the COVID-19 pandemic. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2FL2F4

Authorities in eastern Libya will allow limited exports from blockaded oil ports to free up storage space and enable the production of fuel for power stations, an oil facilities guard and an engineer said on Tuesday. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N2FK5KY

(Reporting By Shu Zhang; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri) ((shu.zhang@thomsonreuters.com; +65-6870-3549; Reuters Messaging: Twitter @shuzhang4))