SINGAPORE- Middle East crude benchmarks rose on Thursday, while Iraq sold 4 million barrels of Basra crude loading at the end of June to Unipec at steady premiums from the previous month, trade sources said.

 

MIDDLE EAST: Iraq sold 2 million barrels of Basra Light crude loading on June 28-30 at a premium of 77 cents a barrel above the grade's official selling price (OSP) and 2 million barrels of Basra Heavy crude loading on June 29-30 at a premium of $2.30 a barrel above its OSP to the Chinese trader, the sources said.

The deals, concluded through tenders, could not be independently verified.

SOMO will close on Thursday a third tender issued this month to sell 2 million barrels of Basra Light crude for loading on June 29-30.

PTT has bought Banoco Arab Medium crude for July loading via a tender at 20-30 cents a barrel above its OSP, traders said.

 

ASIA-PACIFIC CRUDE: Malaysia's Petronas has offered the first ever cargo of Kayu Manis crude, for loading in June, through a tender, trade sources said.

The 150,000-barrel cargo will load on June 10-16 at the Kayu Manis South East (KMSE) marine terminal, they said.

Kayu Manis South East (KMSE) is a marginal oilfield offshore Sarawak.

The crude has an API gravity of about 44 degrees and contains 0.02% sulphur, one of the sources said.

Petronas will close the tender on Friday.

PV Oil has awarded Bach Ho light crude supplies loading in the second half of this year to Binh Son refinery at a premium of more than $4 a barrel to dated Brent.

 

NEWS

The United Arab Emirates will show restraint after attacks on oil tankers off its coast and is committed to de-escalation during a "difficult situation" caused by Iranian behavior in the region, a senior official said on Wednesday. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL5N22R83B

Attacks on Saudi tankers and other vessels off the coast of the United Arab Emirates this week expose vulnerabilities in the security of a key oil-shipping route amid rising tensions between the United States, Iran and Gulf Arab states. 

The bills are due for millions of barrels of contaminated Russian oil that have been stuck for weeks in pipelines from Belarus to Germany - but no one wants to pay. 

Venezuela's crucial oil upgraders have stopped processing heavy crude because a decline in exports due to U.S. sanctions has left the OPEC nation without sufficient storage space, seven sources familiar with the facilities told Reuters. 

Equinor is investigating an oil spill at its Statfjord field in the North Sea, although the Norwegian company said on Wednesday the incident had not disrupted production. F

A tanker carrying Iranian fuel oil in violation of U.S. sanctions has unloaded the cargo into storage tanks near the Chinese city of Zhoushan, according to ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon. 

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