Gasoline cracks and high prices for competing North Sea grades kept price offers high for light, sweet Nigerian crude, though two key streams have suffered loading issues.
According to Reuters, a slightly smaller January loading volume for North Sea benchmark grades and multi-year price highs for the likes of Forties kept offers for some light, sweet Nigerian grades above a $3 premium to dated Brent.
The report indicates that less than 10 cargoes of Nigerian crude remain for export in December — a record low for 2019 — as European refiners continue to maintain high interest.
The Bonga stream is set to export only a single cargo because of maintenance issues that also curtailed December exports.
A sabotage on a major pipeline feeding exports of Bonny Light oil led to a small change to the timeline of exports this week, carrying over a cargo each assigned to Shell and Vitol
from December to January.
Also one cargo of Forcados crude for export over Jan. 9-10 was reassigned from Shoreline to Vitol and another for Jan. 18-19 from Seplat to Mercuria.
Elsewhere, Indonesia’s Pertamina issued a buy tender for Feb. 8-12 and Feb. 13-22 delivery. The tender closes on Dec. 2 and remains valid until Dec. 4.
Pertamina bought US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Midland crude for delivery between February and June, it announced last week, in a sign that a once-secure market for
Nigerian crude was facing increasing US competition.
