SINGAPORE- The Middle East crude market weakened on Thursday amid lower demand from Japan and as traders eyed arbitrage supplies.
Japan's crude demand cooled as refineries are still recovering from a typhoon, traders said.
Fuji Oil has bought one Banoco Arab Medium crude cargo for December loading at a discount likely about 14 cents a barrel, traders said.
Light grades such as Murban, Das and Qatar Land have all slipped into discounts against their respective OSPs.
PTT has bought one cargo each of Qatar Land and Upper Zakum in a tender on behalf of Thai refiner IRPC. Prices were not immediately known.
Brent's premium to Dubai quotes was at $2.40 a barrel at Thursday's market close, the lowest since end-August, allowing more Brent-linked cargoes from the Atlantic Basin to head to Asia.
Still, Russian grades remained resilient as ONGC sold a 700,000-barrel cargo to load on Dec. 20-26 to Petro-Diamond at $5.60-$5.70 a barrel above Dubai quotes, traders said, up from an earlier deal at a premium of $5.40.
IRAN: An unprecedented volume of Iranian crude oil is set to arrive at China's northeast Dalian port this month and in early November before U.S. sanctions on Iran take effect, data on Refinitiv Eikon showed.
A total of 22 million barrels of Iranian crude oil loaded on supertankers owned by the National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC) are headed for Dalian, the data showed. Dalian typically receives between 1 million and 3 million barrels of Iranian oil each month, according to the data that dates back to January 2015.
REFINERY
Saudi Aramco signed an agreement on Thursday to invest in a refinery-petrochemical project in eastern China, part of its strategy to expand in downstream operations globally.
NEWS
Turkey's top refiner, Tupras, is in talks with U.S. officials to obtain a waiver allowing it to keep buying Iranian oil after Washington reinstates sanctions on the Islamic Republic's energy sector in November, industry sources said.
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will struggle to resume oil production from jointly operated fields any time soon due to operational differences and souring political ties between the previously close Gulf OPEC allies, sources familiar with the matter said.
The United States plans to turn up sanctions pressure on Venezuela but sees less need to immediately target its energy sector, given sagging production from the OPEC member's state-run oil company, a senior U.S. administration official said.
Trafigura executives expect more upward pressure on global oil prices next year as rising U.S. shale output will not be able to fill a gap in supply once U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil come into force in early November.
The United States plans to turn up sanctions pressure on Venezuela but sees less need to immediately target its energy sector, given sagging production from the OPEC member's state-run oil company, a senior U.S. administration official said.
((Florence.Tan@thomsonreuters.com; +65 6870 3497; Reuters Messaging: florence.tan.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
