Crude/Condensate: Aug 19-23: Sep to Oct Ichthys supply to be delayed
September-loading Iraqi grades, Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) canceled a Basrah Medium (BM)sell tender. SOMO seemed to have perceived that bids were lower than expectations and skipped selling the cargo. One Chinese company pointed out that several players such as Majors had participated in the tender and showed bids at discount levels to the OSP. Through the tender closed on Tuesday, SOMO was trying to sell 1mil barrels of BM.
African/European/Russian/American Crude In the trade of African grades, supplies of Niger's new heavy sweet crude Meleck resumed early this week. The first cargo of Meleck for May-loading was exported but the supplies for the crude had halted since late June due to growing political tensions between Niger and the adjacent Republic of Benin as reported. But the political issues were apparently settled, paving a way for the supply to restart this week. China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) , operator for the crude, brought the first May cargo to its own refinery in China. For June-loading, Senning under the umbrella of CNPC sold two cargoes to British Shell and European Vitol at discounts of the $2-$3.00s levels to Dated Brent as reported. Meleck is a heavy sweet crude with an API gravity of 24.4 degrees and a sulfur content of 0.354%.
Asia Pacific Crude In trade for Australian grades, supply of September to October-loading Ichthys condensate was expected to be delayed. INPEX, an operator of the Ichthys LGN project (with production capacity of 8.90 mil mt/year), shut operations at the No.2 liquefaction train (with production capacity of 4.45 mil mt/year) on August 20. It was unclear when INPEX would resume its operations of the No2 train. Concerns were growing that supply/demand fundamentals for October-loading regional condensates might tighten due to the expected delay. For October-loading, PTT Public Co. and Hanwha Total Energies had purchased one cargo each of October-loading at premiums of DTD + mid $3 to close to $4.00 to Dated Brent.
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