Urals and CPC Blend differentials softened, Azeri Light exports surge in January
MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Urals and CPC Blend crude differentials to dated Brent weakened on Thursday, as sellers were eager to get rid of December barrels, while Azeri Light loading plan for January showed healthy build in exports next month.
Otherwise, Azerbaijan plans to announce proposals for oil output cuts at a meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC countries to be held in Vienna on Dec. 10, an energy ministry official told Reuters on Thursday.
Russia said on Wednesday it sold a stake in oil giant Rosneft for $11.3 billion to Qatar and commodities trader Glencore, confounding expectations that the Kremlin's standoff with the West would scare off major investors.
Glencore said on Wednesday it would enter a new deal to buy oil from Rosneft as part of a broader move by the Russian government to sell a stake in its major oil firm with Glencore injecting limited equity into the transaction.
It said it would also enter a new 5-year offtake agreement with Rosneft to buy an additional 220,000 bpod for the Glencore marketing business.
Belarus has made an advance payment to Russia for gas supplies and hopes that Russia will restore oil volumes in return, the Belarussian government said in a statement on Thursday.
On the same day a 100,000-tonne Urals cargo from Ust-Luga for Dec. 23-24 was obtained by Rosneft on top of the final loading schedule, Reuters sources said on Thursday.
In the Platts window Trafigura sold to Total 100,000 t of Urals in the Baltic for Dec. 26-30 at dated Brent minus $1.80 a barrel, Reuters sources said. That was down by 10 cents from Wednesday levels.
Vitol offered a cargo of the same size for Dec. 20-24 down to minus $1.60 a barrel.
In the Mediterranean, Litasco sold to ExxonMobil 80,000 tonnes of Urals for Dec. 19-23 a discount of $1.20 a barrel, some 25 cents a barrel below the latest estimates for the grade.
In CPC Blend, ExxonMobil offered a cargo down to dated Brent minus $0.10 a barrel to dated Brent, but found no buyer. On Wednesday CPC Blend differentials stood between dated flat and plus 10 cents a barrel.
There was no activity in Azeri Light in the Platts window on Thursday, while Azeri light oil exports from the Turkish port of Ceyhan are set to rise by 10.2% month-on-month in January, to 0.698 MMbpd.
Iraq's January official selling price (OSP) for Basra Light for Europe rose by $0.45 to dated Brent minus $4.05 a barrel and the January Kirkuk OSP rose to minus $4.60, the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) said on Friday.
Reporting by Gleb Gorodyankin; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle
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