Middle East Crude

　In trade for Abu Dhabi grades, Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) had bought Abu Dhabi Murban for July arrival via a tender closed on May 7. It later turned out that PTT Public Co. had sold 2mil barrels of Murban to HPCL via the tender.　PTT seemed to have sold the cargoes to HPCL on behalf of PetroChina that had held Murban to sell. HPCL had bought 2mil barrels of the cargoes for delivery to India on a CFR basis and the price was equivalent to premiums of $0.80's to Dubai quotes on an FOB basis. HPCL often buys West African grades but they opted to buy Murban this time as Murban values were regarded as attractive.

African/European/Russian/American Crude

　In the trade of Canadian heavy grades for Asia, talks for crudes ex the TMX pipeline for August arrival started. Offers for August arrival Cold Lake were heard at flat to a discount of $1.00 to ICE Brent on a CFR basis. Demand/supply fundamentals for medium/heavy grades in the North American market was tight, so that sellers kept a bullish marketing stance. "Offers are bids are far apart, so that no deals were done so far," said an end-user in China. For July arrival TMX grades, end-users in China such as Rongsheng Petrochemical and end-users in South Korea purchased cargoes. The price for July arrival Cold Lake was at a discount of the $1.00s level to ICE Brent on CFR as reported.

Asia Pacific Crude

In trade for July-loading Vietnamese grades, Petro Vietnam Oil Corp (PV OIL) issued a Chim Sao sell tender. Through the tender that would be closed on May 13 at 09:00 Vietnam time with validity until May 16 at 18:00, PV OIL was trying to sell one cargo of 300,000barrels for July 19-23 loading. Meanwhile, some players in Southeast Aisa such as Thailand's Bangchack, that held fixed demand, were expected to participate in the tender. With refinery margins for middle distillates such as gasoil improving, these players considered raising the evaluations for Chim Sao, and thus market sentiment would become strong in the near future.