Nigeria’s unsold crude oil cargoes, which were over 20 last month, have reduced to 15, according to trade sources.
A fall in futures prices and a strong recovery in gasoline refining margins have helped to shore up demand for light sweet Nigerian crude oil, but slow sales, up until now, have kept differentials, that is, the difference between the sold and unsold, low.
Traders said that Nigerian oil for December loading has already been on sale for around two weeks and about 60 per cent of the stock still remain available for the market too.
Exxon was said to have sold a VLCC of Qua Iboe and Zafira to IOC via a tender, while Total sold one of Brass and a Pazflor.
Trafigura supplied a cargo of Bonny Light to Pertamina through a tender, a trader said.
Qua Iboe was being offered at dated Brent plus $1. A trader said a cargo for prompt delivery sold for around dated Brent plus 50 cents.
Angolan oil has sold much more quickly, traders said, with all but 10 to 15 cargoes out of a total of 58 for December loading finding buyers.
High freight costs and a high premium of Brent to Dubai DUB-EFS-1M has made West African oil less competitive for Asian buyers.
Around 12 to 15 cargoes of November-loading crude oil are still available for purchase, traders said with a high number for this point in the trading cycle.
Providing some support, there was lower supply from competing Libyan oil after the country’s Nafoura and Al-Majid oil fields, with a combined production of around 29,000 barrels per day, following the Zueitina oil port being shut down, an energy official said.
Meanwhile, a total of 65.2 million barrels of crude oil and condensate were lifted in August by all parties.
Out of this volume, 21.5 million barrels were lifted by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on behalf of the federation. This comprises of 14.3 million barrels lifted on the account of NNPC while 6.7 million barrels and 0.5 million were superintended for Federal Inland Revenue and Department of Petroleum Resources respectively.
NNPC said that out of the 14.3 million barrels lifted on the account of NNPC in August 2015, 10.9 million barrels and 3.4 million barrels were for domestic and export markets respectively.
It noted that at an average oil price of $44.92 per barrel and exchange rate of N196 per dollar, the domestic crude oil lifted by NNPC was valued at $489.7million or equivalent of N96 billion for the period.
It said that the remaining crude oil lifted for export was valued at $160.58 million at an average price of $47.32 a barrel.
“The total value of crude oil lifted on the account of NNPC in August was thus $650 million. From January to August 2015, a total volume of 504.29 million barrels of crude oil and condensate was lifted by all parties. In August 2015, NNPC lifted 10,902,373 barrels of crude oil for domestic utilisation translating to an average volume of 351,689 barrels of oil per day.
“In order to meet domestic product supply requirement for the month of August 2015, 6,643,327 barrels of crude oil was processed through Offshore Processing Agreements (OPA), 2,397,681 barrels was processed in the domestic refineries and the balance of 1,861,365 barrels was sold in the export market”, it added.
(Agency Report)
