SINGAPORE, July 26 (Reuters) - Asia-Pacific crude market remained firm on Thursday, helped by a narrower Brent-Dubai price spread.
Brent crude oil's premium to Dubai quotes fell to $1.18 a barrel, the lowest since August 2017 as the global benchmark continued to weaken, Reuters data showed.
September Brent's premium to Dubai quotes has lost 68 percent of its value since the start of July, the data showed.
This coincides with weaker Brent spreads with the prompt-month spread LCOc1-LCOc2 now at a contango of about 50 cents/bbl, down from a backwardation of 30 cents at the start of July.
A narrower price spread between the two benchmarks will encourage Asian buyers to buy more oil from the Atlantic Basin and curb demand for Dubai-linked grades.
MALAYSIA: Petronas is offering 200,000 barrels of Bergading condensate to load on Sept. 21-30. The tender will close on July 27 with bids valid until July 30.
ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) has sold 300,000 barrels of Kikeh loading on Sept. 30-Oct. 4 to an oil major. The price was not immediately known.
TENDERS: Taiwanese refiner CPC has bought nearly 8 million barrels of sweet crude for October delivery via a tender, trade sources said.
The refiner bought 4 million barrels of U.S. WTI Midland crude, 2 million barrels of Algerian Saharan Blend and more than 1 million barrels of Azeri Light crude, they said.
Prices and the sellers were not immediately known.
Last month, the refiner bought 5 million barrels of WTI Midland via a tender CRU/TENDA
REFINERY
S-Oil Corp, South Korea's third-largest refiner, said on Thursday that it expected refining margins to improve in the third quarter from weakness in the April-June period, backed by robust demand. Arabia's Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Thursday that the world's top exporter was "temporarily halting" all oil shipments through Bab El-Mandeb strait immediately, after an earlier attack on two crude vessels by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement. crude oil inventories last week tumbled more than expected to their lowest level since 2015 as exports jumped and stocks at the Cushing hub dropped, the Energy Information Administration said. oil production this year will increase to 551 million tonnes (11.02 million barrels per day), a new 30-year high and up by around 3.5 million tonnes from previous expectations, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said. States threats to throttle Iran's international oil trade can be easily answered, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday, according to the Tasnim news agency. 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
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Complex refining margins REF/MARGIN1