SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks Oman and Dubai rose for a second straight session on Wednesday, while trading activity wound down for the November-loading cycle.

 

ASIA-PACIFIC CRUDE:

Malaysia's State oil firm Petronas said it has set the price factor for Malaysian Crude Oil (MCO) for October at $0.30 per barrel, down $3.10 from the previous month.

Petronas sold a 300,000-barrel cargo of Muda Condensate, Nov 17-23, to Thai refiner PTT at a discount of around $1.70 a barrel to dated Brent via a tender, traders said.

Petronas offered a cargo of Bunga Orkid crude, loading Nov. 23-27, via a tender closed on Tuesday with bids valid till Wednesday.

November-loading Australian North West Shelf (NWS) condensate earlier this month was traded at a discount of around $2.5 a barrel to dated Brent on an FOB basis or a discount of above $1 on a CFR basis, traders said. Indonesia's TPPI bought one NWS cargo from Exxon Mobil, they said.

 

RUSSIAN CRUDE:

Gazprom Neft sold a 1 million-barrel cargo of ESPO Blend crude, loading Nov 19-29, to China's Unipec at a premium of 70-80 cents a barrel to Dubai quotes via a tender, traders said.

A day earlier, Gazprom Neft sold a 740,000-barrel ESPO crude cargo loading in the first half of November at a premium of around 50 cents to Dubai. 

 

REFINERY

PetroChina Co Ltd's subsidiary refinery in northeast China's Daqing has started processing its first Russian crude oil transported via pipeline, after completion of plant upgrade, according to a company report posted on its social media platform on Tuesday. 

 

NEWS

The chief executive of Russian oil producer Gazprom Neft said he expects global oil consumption to return to pre-crisis levels in the second half of 2021, slightly later than the energy ministry's forecast for the second quarter.

The Swiss arm of France's BNP Paribas said it is closing its commodity trade finance business, the latest bank to withdraw after the coronavirus crisis led to defaults and exposed a series of frauds. 

China's Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) said on Tuesday it approved an additional 600,000 cubic metres of storage in northeast China owned by PetroChina International as delivery tanks for crude oil futures. 

Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said on Tuesday it was lifting force majeure at the eastern Zueitina oil port after conducting security assessments at the terminal and connected fields.

 

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