VIETNAM: More details emerged for a Chim Sao tender. PV Oil sold the cargoes at $3.10-$3.20 a barrel above dated Brent to Ampol and Unipec.
Separately, PV Oil may have sold Ruby at a premium of more than $2 a barrel to an oil major, a trader said, although the tender award has not been finalised.
Petronas closed on Wednesday a tender to sell one Bunga Orkid cargo.
MALAYSIA: Malaysian crude will start trading on Thursday through tenders from Petronas and ConocoPhillips. Petronas offered a Labuan cargo, while ConocoPhillips offered one of its two Kimanis cargoes to load in January.
Of the 11 Kimanis cargoes to load in January, Petronas has five while Shell, Petroleum Brunei and ConocoPhillips have two each. One cargo may slip into February, a trader said.
THAILAND: Thailand's PTT will close on Wednesday a tender to buy sweet crude on behalf of IRPC.
AUSTRALIA: Woodside has offered a 600,000-barrel Pluto condensate cargo at about $3 a barrel above dated Brent that will load in January. Earlier, BHP sold a North West Shelf condensate cargo to BP at a premium of $2.50-$3 a barrel.
PHILIPPINES: Shell sold a 300,000-barrel cargo of Malampaya condensate to SK Energy at about parity to dated Brent.
RUSSIA: Sakhalin Energy sold six cargoes of its crude at $3.30-$3.40 a barrel above Dubai quotes, steady from the previous month, traders said.
Buyers of the Sakhalin Blend crude cargoes included end-users in South Korea, Japan and China as well as an oil major, they said.
Five of the cargoes will load on Jan. 26-Feb. 1, Feb. 1-6, 6-12, 12-18, 17-23. A sixth cargo will load end-February.
China's CEFC looks set to unseat Trafigura as Rosneft's main oil trading partner in Asia after securing a five-year deal to take 60 million tonnes of crude from Russia's energy giant, industry sources said.
In January, CEFC receives its first 200,000 tonnes of ESPO from Kozmino port and 200,000 tonnes of Sokol crude via De-Kastri terminal, alongside some Urals oil from Novorosiisk, three traders told Reuters.
From April, CEFC plans to take seven to nine cargoes a month of ESPO from Rosneft, the same amount Trafigura now buys, the traders added.