--Middle East

　Saudi Aramco on Tuesday released the acceptance for May-loading for its long-term contractors in Asia. Aramco planned to slash supply of May-loading Arab Heavy (AH), compared to contracted volumes. Regarding Arab Medium (AM), Aramco would cut term supply to some contractors, according to sources. Aramco currently conducted maintenance at the AH Oil Field, which had started in March. Nevertheless, the turnaround might be completed in May. Thus, Aramco would supply May-loading AM to some of the term contractors as an alternative to AH, similar to April-loading.

--Africa/Europe/Russia/America

　In the trade of US grades bound for Asia, South Korea's SK Energy purchased additional 2.0 mil bbls of WTI Midlands for July arrival in the middle of this week. The seller was US Occidental and the price was said to be at a premium of low $5.00s to Dubai quotes on a CFR basis. The cargo was the third VLCC as July arrival US crudes, thus the company bought a total of 6.0 million barrels of US crudes including WTI. The market for US grades such as WTI and Mars had risen temporarily due to Mexico's crude export cuts, but the market retreated from early April due to deteriorating margins for middle distillates in Asia and softening freight rates.

--Asia Pacific

　In trade for June-loading NWSC, buyers and sellers took a wait-and-see stance and thus talks showed no progress. On the demand side, with low refinery margins for naphtha, several end-users such as SK Energy, Hanwha Total Energy and PTT Public Co in Thailand were not apparently keen on spot purchase of NWSC. Further, supply of June-loading D.F.C. and L.S.C. toward Asia was increasing, which was also regarded as a bearish factor. Meanwhile, two cargoes of June-loading NWSC were scheduled to be supplied, as reported earlier. Chevron had one cargo for June 8-12 loading while Australia's Woodside held one cargo for Jun 24-28 loading. Those two companies, however, currently refrained from showing firm offers since there were no active buyers in the market.