Middle East Crude

Sri Lanka's state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation bought Murban on a DAP Sri Lanca basis. European Vitol and BB Energy sold three cargoes of 700,000barrles each for Jun to October delivery. The prices were at premiums in the high $3's to the OSP for Murban.

In trade for Iraqi grades, PetroChina seemed to have bought 1-2mil barrels of May-loading BH at premiums of about $1.10 to the OSP.

African/European/Russian/American Crude

India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) sold 600,000bbl of Nile Blend for April-loading. The price was at a discount of slightly larger than $3.00 to Dated Brent and the buyer was China International United Petroleum & Chemicals Co (UNIPEC). In the trade of arbitrage condensates bound for Asia, Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina purchased one cargo of May-arrival Nigerian Escravos in its condensate buy tender for TPPI. The seller was said to be Nigerian based Sahara Energy.

Asia Pacific Crude

In trade for May-loading Vietnamese grades, PetroVietnam Oil Corp (PV OIL) awarded a Su Tu Den sell tender to Australia's Ampol. The awarded price was at premiums in the $7's to Dated Brent. PV OIL awarded a May-loading Ruby sell tender to Bin Son Refining & Petrochemical (BSR) at premiums in the high $4's to Dated Brent. In trade for May-loading Malaysian grades, Malaysia's state-owned Petronas awarded a Labuan sell tender for end-May loading. The winner was Ampol and the awarded price was at premiums in the $9's to Dated Brent.