Middle East Crude

Saudi Aramco on Jan 11 informed its long-term contractors in Asia that Aramco would supply February-loading term cargoes such as Arab Light (AL) as per contracts. Most of long-term contractors such as energy companies in Northeast Asia had predicted that Aramco might increase term supply of February-loading since Aramco had lowered February-loading OSPs by $2.00 from January-loading. Meanwhile, one trader in Singapore reckoned that Aramco would accept requests for additional supply from long-term contracts in order to increase its sales volumes of February-loading. In early-January, several long-term contractors such as energy companies in India such as Indian Oil Corp (IOC) apparently requested Aramco to increase February-loading supply.

African/European/Russian/American Crude

　India IOC issued a sweet crude tender for February-loading but IOC on Jan 11 canceled the tender. As for the background, IOC was believed to have taken incremental term barrels for February-loading from Saudi Arabia's state-owned Saudi Aramco. Some end-users in India had requested Saudi Aramco to take more term barrels than contractual volumes for February-loading. "Saudi Arabia apparently provided larger volumes of term barrels to some of its end-users in India," said a trader in Singapore. Furthermore, a recent gain in VLCC freight rates made prices for West African grades on a CFR India basis expensive and this also was cited as a factor for the cancellation. IOC in early January procured Nigerian Agbami, Bonga, Usan and Congo's Djeno in its March arrival sweet tender as reported.

Asia Pacific Crude

In the trade of Vietnamese grades, Bin Son Refining & Petrochemical (BSR) was scheduled to conduct a regular maintenance at Dung Quat refinery(with production capacity of 817,000 barrels per day) in March and it would take 40 days. Thus, PetroVietnam Oil Corp (PV OIL) would sell spot cargoes such as Bach Ho Light and Ruby which the above refinery usually refines. Thus, one trader in Singapore pointed out that market sentiment for March-loading Vietnamese grades was weak on weak demand/supply fundamentals. Meanwhile, PetroVietnam Oil Corp (PV OIL) carried out a Su Tu Den sell tender. Through the tender that would be closed on Friday, PV OIL was trying to sell three cargoes, as reported earlier. One trader perceived that PV OIL apparently held more room to sell Su Tu Den than usual since BSR might not receive a term cargo of March-loading Su Tu Den. Further, PV OIL was likely to issue a sell tender for March-loading Bach Ho Light and Bach Ho Heavy. It was believed that PV OIL might sell three cargoes in total at maximum.