Middle East Crude

In the trade of Qatari grades, state-owned Qatar Energy (QE) sold a total of five cargoes for February-loading in a tender closed on Tuesday. European Glencore took one cargo each for 1-2, 14-15 and 15-16 loading. India's HPCL Mittal Energy (HMEL) bought one cargo each for 17-18 and 23-24 loading. Those cargoes were all awarded at premiums of the 40cts level to Dubai quotes. Tradable levels as of Thursday were seen at the same levels. Elsewhere, the term price for February Al Shaheen was set at a premium of 53cts to Dubai quotes, down 31cts from the previous month.

African/European/Russian/American Crude

In trade for Russian grades, Indian imports remained robust as of December 2025. India was expected to receive about 62 million barrels of Russian crude in December, according to the latest import data. The US had requested in October that India halt imports of Russian crude. In response, end-users such as Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical (MRPL) and Reliance Industries (RIL) moved to suspend imports of Russian crude such as Urals. Nevertheless, "some end-users, such as Indian Oil Corp (IOC), continued procuring Russian crude, keeping overall import volumes at a high level" said one trader in West Asia. Strong domestic energy demand in India and the price competitiveness of Russian grades seemed to be driving the sustained imports. MRPL has been purchasing Middle Eastern crude as a substitute for Urals, having bought February-loading Iraqi Basrah Heavy via recent tender. Meanwhile, IOC was actively buying Urals and ESPO Blend, highlighting a polarization in the strategies of Indian buyers.

Asia Pacific Crude

Malaysia's Petronas awarded its Labuan sell tender for end-February loading on Wednesday. The winner was European Vitol and the price was said to be at a premium of around $7.00 to Dated Brent. End-month loading Labuan sold by Petronas tends to fetch larger premiums to Dated Brent than other cargoes in the wake of the characteristics of trade. Meanwhile, in the trade of Vietnamese grades, PV Oil awarded a February-loading Chim Sao sell tender to PV Oil Singapore although the awarded price was unknown at present. PV Singapore was not an end-user and thus it was widely believed that buying interest in the above cargo might have been weak. PV Oil Singapore was expected to resell the cargo in the spot market. Through the tender closed on December 12 with validity until Wednesday, PV Oil was trying to sell 300,000barrels for Feb 7-11 loading.