Singapore (Platts)--18Feb2011/547 am EST/1047 GMT
Asian crude cargo trading picked up this week as the lull due to Lunar New Year holidays at the start of February came to an end. In the week ending Friday, Platts reported seven crude cargoes being offered for April loading, three of which were snapped up during the week. In addition, there were at least four other trades done for April crude cargoes, bringing the total number of trades reported by Platts in the week to seven. By contrast, there were only three regional crude cargoes being offered and traded for April loading the previous week. On Tuesday, Russia's Rosneft was heard to have sold 700,000 barrels of medium-sweet Sokol for April 15-24 loading at Platts Dubai plus around $7/barrel CFR Yeosu to Warly International, 50 cents/b higher than March, said a source close to the company. Malaysia's Petco, the trading arm of state-owned Petronas, started the monthly tender of Malaysian crude oils for April Wednesday by selling 600,000 barrels of light sweet Tapis Blend to BP at a premium of $1.70-1.80/b to Asia Pacific Petroleum Index for Tapis while Russia's Sakhalin Energy was also heard offering 730,000 barrels of light sweet Vityaz Blend for April 6-13 loading, market sources said. The Vityaz tender closed on Thursday but tender award details could not be immediately confirmed Friday. Meanwhile, Japan's Marubeni was heard to have sold medium sweet Sokol for April 5-15 loading at Platts Dubai plus $6.75/barrel CFR Korea to a South Korean refiner Thursday, according to market sources. The premium achieved was around $0.20/b lower than Rosneft's April Sokol sold on Tuesday. Indonesia's Pertamina was also heard to have bought 1 million barrels of light-sweet Algerian Saharan Blend crude for April delivery to Cilacap from Itochu at Platts Dated Brent plus $4.25-4.75/b Thursday, which is roughly equivalent to Dated plus $3.85-4.35/b FOB for similar regional sweet crudes like Tapis with intra-regional freights around $0.40/b. Also on Thursday, Papua New Guinea's Oil Search was heard to have sold two cargoes of light sweet Kutubu for April loading at Platts Dated Brent plus $4.20/b to Chevron, according to industry sources. Elsewhere, Vietnam's Petrovietnam Oil was heard to offer four crude cargoes for April loading via closed tenders Friday. The tenders are for two cargoes of 300,000 barrels light sweet Ruby crude each, one cargo of 300,000 barrels Bunga Kekwa crude and one cargo of 300,000 barrels Bunga Orkid crude. The Ruby tenders close on February 24 while the Bunga Kekwa and Bunga Orkid tenders close on February 21.--Adi Tamara, adi_tamara@platts.comSimilar stories appear in Oilgram News. See more information at http://bit.ly/OilgramNews