Middle East Crude

In trade for Abu Dhabi grades, INPEX sells May-loading Murban at the prices linked to the OSP. INPEX apparently sold four cargoes at premiums of about 17cts to the OSP although the buyers were unknown. The prices were slightly below the prices for April-loading OSP linked deals. In addition, INPEX on Feb 28 apparently sold at least two cargoes at premiums of about 10cts to the OSP in the spot market. Meanwhile, ADNOC Trading, a subsidiary of ADNOC, bought at least two cargoes of April-loading Upper Zakum in end-February. There were few cargoes for April-loading available in the market. Under such circumstances, ADNOC Trading moved to buy May-loading Upper Zakum and showed a bid at premiums of $1.35 to May Dubai quotes.

African/European/Russian/American Crude

In the trade of US grades bound for Asia, China International United Petroleum & Chemicals Co (UNIPEC) purchased one VLCC or 2.0 mil bbls of WTI Midlands for June arrival. The seller was US Occidental Petroleum. The price was at a premium of low to mid $5.00s to Dubia quotes on a CFR basis. In tender-related news, State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) purchased West African grades in its April-loading, or May arrival sweet crude buy tender. It later turned out that IOC purchased Angolan Nemba and Congo's Djeno from French Total Energies. It also purchased Nigerian Agbami and Bonny Light from British Shell, boosting its procurements to a total of 2 VLCCs (4.00 mil bbls in total).

Asia Pacific Crude

In tender-related news, Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina opened a May arrival condensate buy tender for the country's petrochemical firm TPPI and closed the tender on Feb 28 at 10:00 Jakarta time. Through the tender with offers valid until Mar 1 at 20:00, Pertamina was seeking one cargo for May 1-6 arrival. In trade for April-loading Vietnamese grades, Vietnam's PV Oil apparently awarded an April-loading Ruby sell tender to Thailand's Bangchack at premiums in the $3's to Dated Brent. Through the tender, PV was trying to sell 300,000bbl of Ruby for Apr 3-10 loading.