Copyright © 2010 Reed Business Information Limited. ICIS Pricing is a member of the Reed Elsevier plc group.

NOTE: for full details on the criteria ICIS pricing uses in making these price assessments visit www.icispricing.com and click on “methodology”.

COMMENTS

  The Asia Pacific market was quiet on Thursday with traders awaiting the release of the monthly sweet crude purchase tender from Indonesia. The new purchase tender for October arrival barrels is expected to be issued in the coming days. In its previous tender for September arrival barrels, Petral, the trading arm of Pertamina, the Indonesian state oil company, bought 600,000 bbl of Champion from Itochu at Dated Brent (Dtd) plus 6.00 C&F and 950,000 bbl of Saharan Blend from Concord at Dtd plus 4.50 C&F.

Traders also awaited news on the ongoing negotiations between PV Oil and term customers for the tender offering 200,000 bbl per month of Rang Dong for loading October 2011 to March 2012. Initial bids were submitted on 29 July and will have validity until 12 August. Previously, PV Oil awarded the April-September 2011 Rang Dong term tender at Minas formula plus 3.88. Spot September Rang Dong cargoes recently traded at around Minas formula plus 5.00.

As regards remaining September cargoes, Woodside was still holding a cargo of September Stybarrow. Meanwhile, BP has rolled the last September North West Shelf condensate cargo over into October.

In open market trading, October Dubai partials were bid at 107.15 by Phibro, while offered at 107.20 by Unipec and SK Energy. October Oman partials were offered at 107.80 by Unipec.

The October DME Oman futures contract settled at 107.50, down 2.36 on the previous session. The October ICE Middle East Sour Crude marker was set at 107.76, down 2.69.

The September Brent-Dubai EFS was quoted at plus 5.50, down around 25 cents on the previous session. The October Brent-Dubai EFS was assessed at plus 5.10, down  around 15 cents.