SINGAPORE, March 23 (Reuters) - The Asia Pacific crude oil market remained steady, as traders awaited results of several crude oil tenders from Vietnam.
AUSTRALIA
* Australian crude grades have finished trading for May, trade sources said. A Varanus crude oil cargo for May loading could have sold for $1 to $1.30 a barrel to dated Brent, a crude oil trader said, though this could not be confirmed.
A Pyrenees cargo had sold earlier at $1.70 to $1.95 a barrel to dated Brent while Quadrant and Varanus cargoes have also sold, traders said.
RUSSIA
* ONGC Videsh sold 700,000 barrels of Sokol crude for loading in June at a premium of about $5.20 a barrel to Dubai quotes, traders said.
The cargo was initially scheduled to load over May 22-28 but has been deferred to June instead, one of them said. The reason for this is not immediately clear.
* Russian producer Surgutneftegaz has offered six cargoes of ESPO crude for loading in May, trade sources said.
It has offered cargoes of about 100,000 tonnes each for loading from Kozmino port in a tender that closes on March 23.
The cargo loading dates are May 9-13, May 13-17, May 18-22, May 20-24, May 25-29 and May 28-31.
BRENT-DUBAI EFS
* Brent's premium to Dubai swaps DUB-EFS-1M was at $3.88 per barrel on Friday, up 13 cents for May.
NEWS
* Asia's oil and gas producers are starting to revive projects aimed at deflating years of ballooning energy imports after new investment dried up following the 2014 industry crisis. OPEC members will need to continue coordinating with Russia and other non-OPEC oil-producing countries on supply curbs in 2019 to reduce global oil inventories to desired levels, Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Thursday. Vietnam's state oil firm PetroVietnam has ordered Spanish energy firm Repsol (MC:REP) to suspend its "Red Emperor" project off the country's southeastern coast following pressure from China, the BBC reported on Friday. Chinese conglomerate CEFC had already started paying for a stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft when authorities took its chairman Ye Jianming away, halting the $9.1 billion deal in its tracks, according to three sources close to the matter. Saudi oil giant Aramco said its plants and facilities are operating normally after Yemen's Houthi movement announced on Thursday it had fired a short-range ballistic missile towards an Aramco facility in the southern Saudi province of Najran. The opening of the United Arab Emirates' first nuclear reactor, due to open last year, has been pushed back to 2019 due to training delays, two sources told Reuters. crude prices, oil product cracks and refining margins, please click on the RICs below.
Brent
BRENTSGMc1
Dubai
DUBSGSWMc2
Brent/Dubai EFS
DUB-EFS-1M
PRODUCT CRACKS
Fuel oil crack
FO180SGCKMc1
Gasoil crack
GOSGCKMc1
Naphtha crack
NAFOBSGCKMc1
Complex refining margins REF/MARGIN1