MOSCOW: Urals crude oil differentials in northwest Europe eased against dated Brent on Wednesday as buyers expected a big June loading plan from the Baltic ports due to export issues via Druzhba pipeline which remains mostly shut.

Urals crude oil loading in the first ten days of June are expected to be 2.3 million tonnes, the same amount as in the same period in May, the preliminary loading plan showed on Tuesday.

Market participants are expecting that a meeting of Russia's pipeline monopoly Transneft, Russian oil producers and European companies in Warsaw on May 23 will produce some decisions about restoration of supplies via Druzhba.

Urals cargoes loading from Ust-Luga port in June continued to trade with a discount of around $1-1.50 per barrel to cargoes loading from Primorsk, even though the quality of Urals ex-Ust-Luga is back to normal, traders said.

PLATTS WINDOW

In the Platts window, Trafigura offered 100,000 tonnes of Urals crude oil loading from Primorsk on June 11-15 at dated Brent minus $0.70 a barrel, but failed to find a buyer, traders said. The offer was some 20 cents lower than recent estimations.

The trading firm also offered a Urals cargo loading from Ust-Luga port on June 3-7 at dated Brent minus $1.75 per barrel, but also found no buyers.

There were no bids or offers for Urals loading from Novorossiisk, Azeri BTC or CPC Blend in the Platts window on Wednesday.

TENDER

Russia's Surgutneftegaz on Wednesday sold 300,000 tonnes of Urals crude oil loading from Ust-Luga port in June at discount of around $2-2.10 a barrel to BFOE when adding freight to an original FOB differential, traders said.

The producer awarded three cargoes of 100,000 tonnes each loading from Ust-Luga on June 4-5, 6-7 and 8-9 to Vitol, Trafigura and Gunvor respectively, traders said.

Surgutneftegaz also awarded one Urals cargo loading from Primorsk on June 7-8 to China's Unipec, traders said. The price level of the deal was not available.

NEWS

Hungary has received a total of 60,000 tonnes of contaminated Russian oil in May via the Druzhba pipeline, of which 17,700 tonnes were shipped on May 20-21 after a short break, three industry sources told Reuters on Wednesday.

Russian energy giant Rosneft's domestic oil tender fell 6 percent in price, traders said on Wednesday, as demand was badly impacted by infrastructure bottlenecks due to the contaminated oil crisis.