Mediterranean cargoes of ultra-low sulfur diesel weakened to a three-month low versus Northwest European ULSD cargoes as prompt length and soft demand put pressure on cash differentials in the Mediterranean, while supply in NWE looked more balanced. Platts assessed CIF Mediterranean ULSD cargoes at a $5.25/mt premium over the front-month ICE low-sulfur gasoil future Thursday, down from a $6.25/mt premium Wednesday, while CIF NWE cargoes of ULSD were assessed at a $5.75/mt premium, up from a $5/mt premium. This represents the lowest value of CIF Med cargoes versus CIF NWE ...

India is negotiating with the US for exemptions from “extended sanctions” to maintain its current level of crude oil imports from Iran, but the country is also under pressure from the US administration to halt all crude purchase from Venezuela. According to officials here familiar with ongoing negotiations, India has reduced crude oil purchase from Iran since the US administration imposed sanctions on Iran, but is seeking an extension of exemptions granted earlier to maintain its current lower level of 1.25-million tons a month crude purchase from the Persian Gulf ...

Kazakhstan recorded a record high wheat harvest in 2018 and exported 4.9 million tonnes of wheat. The country plans to export 2.2 million tonnes of wheat this year, opening new countries for export. “Today, we have 10.5 million tonnes of grain, of which 3.7 million tonnes is kept at grain-receiving enterprises, 462,000 tonnes at flour-grinding enterprises and 6.3 million tonnes at farms. We have 8.3 million tonnes of wheat, including 690,000 tonnes we need for food needs, 1.6 million tonnes we need for seed needs, 128,000 tonnes for industrial processing. ...

Chinese scrap recyclers have been adopting new strategies since the government placed restrictions on imports of low-grade material, market sources said. China imported 71,100 mt of copper scrap in February, down 52% year on year, General Administration of Customs data showed. On December 31, the government banned imports of category 7 copper scrap and other low-grade scrap. Category 7 copper scrap consists of used cables, waste motors and other hardware waste with up to 30% copper content. China’s copper scrap imports hit a peak of 5.6 million mt in 2007. ...

India’s Reliance Industries , operator of the world’s largest oil refining complex, on Friday said in a statement it was not breaching U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. The company said its recent fuel exports to Venezuela were agreed to before Washington imposed sanctions in January, and that they were meant to settle Reliance’s crude oil imports from Venezuela. Reliance said it has been in “continuous communication with the US Department of State regarding its activities in Venezuela” since the imposition of sanctions. The State Department referred a request for comment to ...

Commercial onshore light distillate stocks in Singapore, the region’s largest oil trading hub, rose for the second consecutive week in the week ended March 20, as gasoline imports surged to a four-week high. Stocks of light distillates were seen up 1.19% week on week to 16.71 million barrels in the week ended March 20, data released late-Thursday from Enterprise Singapore showed. Enterprise Singapore has defined light distillates to include gasoline and blendstocks such as naphtha and reformate, but not gases like LPG. The increase in inventories was led by a ...

The number of Chinese ports restricting or delaying Australian coal imports has continued to rise, threatening to end the export bonanza that is bloating federal coffers and signalling possible painful long-term structural change to the economy. In an ominous development for Australia’s trade balance and federal budget, traders and buyers in China reported on Thursday that the hold-ups for Australian shipments that began in February have spread from the northern port of Dalian to Fuzhou in the south-eastern Fujian province and Rizhao in Qingdao. Industry news agency Platts reported one ...

Australia’s Ichthys project will make a condensate cargo shipment from a floating production, storage and offloading facility in the coming days as scheduled despite an approaching cyclone, an official with project operator Inpex said Friday. France’s Total is scheduled to lift a condensate cargo on the Aframax vessel Sebarok Spirit over March 24-25 from the FPSO Ichthys Venturer, according to shipping fixtures. S&P Global Platts trade flow software cFlow showed that the Sebarok Spirit is scheduled to arrive at the FPSO on Saturday. Category 3 tropical cyclone Trevor is intensifying ...

Russia’s Surgutneftegaz awarded a spot tender on Friday to sell 340,000 tonnes of Urals crude oil loading from the Baltic port of Ust-Luga and Black Sea’s Novorossiisk, traders said. Surgutneftegaz sold two cargoes of 100,000 tonnes each loading April 5-6 and 8-9 to Shell and Gunvor respectively, traders said. Both cargoes were sold at discount of 50-60 cents a barrel to BFOE when adding freight to the original FOB differential, they added. The producer also sold a 140,000-tonne Urals cargo loading from Novorossiisk on April 6-7, which was purchased by ...

India has been co-operating with the US on the Venezuelan sanctions and it is the “understanding” of the Trump administration that private Indian companies have stopped importing oil from the Latin American country, a top official has said. The US official’s comment came as Washington ramps up actions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime, which is battling to hold onto power in the face of heavy domestic and international pressure. Venezuela is the third largest supplier of oil to India, which is the world’s third-biggest oil consumer. The senior Trump ...

Russia’s Agriculture Ministry is ready to work with the existing union of grain exporters, but it would still like to change how exporters work and for there to be tougher quality controls on grain exports, ministry officials said. The agriculture ministry said last month that it planned to set up a new association of grain exporters to better understand the needs of the market. The ministry on Wednesday cited Deputy Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut as saying the ministry agreed that exporters remain in the existing union, but “change their approach ...

Indonesia’s Pertamina is expected to import around 10 million-11 million barrels of gasoline in April, down from estimated imports of 12 million barrels in March, industry sources said this week. However market participants said they remained optimistic that demand from the region’s largest gasoline buyer would keep the Asian market supported, helping to sustain the recent recovery through the second quarter. “Indonesia’s coming elections in April have helped boost spot demand in March,” a trader in Singapore said. “The following month [May] coincides with Ramadan, which is when countries such ...

US net export sales of corn — both old and new crop — for the current and next marketing year rose to 915,944 mt in the week that ended March 14, up 8% compared with the previous week, Department of Agriculture data showed. Of that, 855,944 mt were for the current 2018-19 marketing year or the old crop, and 60,000 mt were for the next 2019-20 marketing year, or the new crop, the weekly export sales report data showed. Market expectations for the net export sales total were between 600,000 ...

The Taiwan Flour Millers’ Association has purchased 110,000 tonnes of milling wheat to be sourced from the United States in an international tender which closed on Friday, European traders said. The purchase involved a range of different wheat types. Source: Reuters

U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe will be the main competition for Gazprom this year, the Russian gas giant said on Thursday in an abrupt change of tone towards gas supplies from the United States. “It is obvious that LNG will be the main rival in the battle for the European consumer,” Sergei Komlev, head of contracts structuring, said in comments published in Gazprom’s magazine on Thursday. Gazprom has previously dismissed concerns that U.S. LNG supplies to Europe could have an impact on its business, with officials ...