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SINGAPORE: Middle East crude benchmarks Oman and Dubai rebounded on Monday after China, the world’s top crude oil importer, said it would raise its non-state crude oil import quota for 2021 by 20% on-year to 243 million tonnes.
The first batch of China’s crude imports quota will be issued to qualified companies before Dec. 31, the Ministry of Commerce said. The spike in quota may be in response to the new refining capacities to be launched by private refiners such as east China-based Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical Co (ZPC) and Shenghong Petrochemical, industry sources said.
ONGC has offered a cargo of Russian Sokol crude, loading over Dec. 29-Jan. 4, via a spot tender to be closed on Thursday with same-day validity. The official selling price (OSP) of a basket of October-loading Malaysian crude oil grades has been set at $40.45 a barrel, Malaysian state oil firm Petronas said in a pricing document released on Monday.
The October price for flagship Labuan was cut by $3.76 a barrel from $44.21 for September. Petronas also set the price factor for Malaysian Crude Oil (MCO) for November at $0.00 per barrel, down $0.30 from the previous month, the company said in a separate document. Indonesia’s Pertamina has issued a term tender seeking condensate for delivery over February to December next year.
The tender will close on Thursday. Cash Dubai’s discount to swaps narrowed 33 cents to 39 cents a barrel. No Dubai or Oman partials were traded in Window. Dubai was offered at $36.30 and bid at $36.25. India’s gasoil consumption in October rose 6.6% from a year earlier, the first such increase since COVID-19 restrictions were imposed in late March, preliminary data showed on Sunday, signalling a pick-up in industrial activity.
Russian oil and gas condensate output rose to 9.98 million barrels per day (bpd) in October from 9.93 million bpd in September, according to Reuters calculations based on an Interfax report, which cited Energy Ministry’s data on Monday.
Global oil traders Vitol and Trafigura expect a resurgence in coronavirus cases in Europe and the United States to hurt fuel demand although their estimates vary. U.S. oil output fell 3.6% to 10.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in August as offshore Gulf of Mexico production collapsed to the lowest in nearly seven years, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Friday in its monthly 914 production report.
Oil prices will be hemmed in the $40-45 per barrel range for the rest of the year, a Reuters poll showed on Friday, with analysts expecting a rough road to recovery into 2021 as an accelerating coronavirus outbreak fans renewed demand concerns.
ETEW