--Middle East

　In trade for October-loading Abu Dhabi grades, market players were paying attention to demand from Japanese companies. Several refineries were scheduled to conduct regular maintenance in Japan in autumn onwards. ENEOS will halt the operation of the Crude Distillation Unit (with production capacity of 153,000 barrels per day) and inspect facilities at its Negishi refinery from end-September to end-November. Cosmo Oil planned to conduct regular maintenance at its Chiba refinery from October to November. Besides, Taiyo Oil Co Ltd halted operations of its Shikoku plant's No 1 CDU (102,000b/d) and No 2 CDU (32,000b/d) since June 25 and June 26 respectively due to regular maintenance in December. Regular maintenance is concentrated in spring and autumn, low demand seasons. One trader in Singapore noted that Japan's refineries were aging and more glitches tended to occur, which would curb crude demand from Japan.

--Africa/Europe/Russia/America

　For other trade for African grades, production of Senegal's new crude Sangomar appeared to have increased. A total of three cargoes (each 950,000bbl) for August-loading were allocate to operator Australia's Woodside. Furthermore, a total of four cargoes were slated for September-loading. Woodside earlier sold two cargoes for July loading, the first exports, to British Shell as reported. Sangomar has a medium sour crude with an API gravity of 31.1 degrees and its sulfur content of about 1%.

--Asia Pacific

　Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina resumed operations of Balikpapan refinery (with production capacity of 360,000 barrels per day) last week. Pertamina had continued restoration work at Balikpapan refinery where a fire had broken out on May 25, as reported earlier. Pertamina had initially planned to restart operations of the refinery in early July but the schedule had been delayed. Meanwhile, with Balikpapan refinery ramping up its operation rates, one trader in Singapore reckoned that Pertamina would increase purchase volumes of crude oils for October arrival via a buy tender to be issued soon, compared to those for August to September arrival.