Asia-Pacific Crude-Australia to load fewer cargoes in June

SINGAPORE: The Asia-Pacific crude market is expected to tighten as Australia is likely to load fewer cargoes in June, trade sources said on Monday.

AUSTRALIA

Australia's crude oil exports for June are expected to reduce from the previous months amid maintenance at a unit in one of the fields, trade sources said.

BP is expected to load a Cossack cargo in second half of June while Inpex is expected to load a Pyrenees cargo in early June, they added.

This adds to the five North West Shelf condensate cargoes expected to load in June and early July, they said.

There will be no Vincent crude oil cargo expected to load in June, one of them said. Woodside Petroleum will suspend production of its Vincent crude oil for a year starting from May as the floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit for the field undergoes maintenance.

INDONESIA

Indonesia's crude requirement could reduce as Pertamina's Balikpapan refinery is operating at a reduced rate after an oil spill, trade sources said, though this could not be confirmed.

It was also not clear by how much operating rates have reduced or how long this will be for.

BRENT-DUBAI EFS

Brent's premium to Dubai swaps was at $3.53 per barrel, down 12 cents for June.

NEWS

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said an arrangement under which Moscow cooperates with the OPEC oil group could become indefinite once a current deal to curb oil production expires in the end of the year.

Saudi Aramco took the first steps to integrating a petrochemicals business into the United States' biggest oil refinery, which is operated by its subsidiary Motiva Enterprises.

US energy companies added oil rigs for the third time in four weeks as crude prices drifted from a three-year high hit earlier this year amid concerns of a trade war between United States and China.

Iran will halt gasoline imports from September, ISNA news agency quoted the oil minister as saying on Monday, as the country aims to achieve self-sufficiency by increasing production of the motor fuel.

OPEC member Libya's oil output is around 1.05 million barrels per day despite a continuing outage since February at its 70,000 bpd El Feel oilfield, a Libyan oil source told Reuters on Friday.

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