Middle East Crude-Murban rebounds, but still cheaper than Oman

Light sour benchmark Murban recovered on Friday after Thursday’s drastic fall, but remained under pressure from arbitrage cargoes from the Atlantic Basin and the U.S.

Spot premium for Murban was $1.82 a barrel over Dubai quotes, up from $1.68 a barrel on Thursday, but still in negative price differential against medium sour Oman.
Market participants expect Murban prices to stay low in the near term in order to gain competitiveness against grades such as WTI Midland from the U.S.

December-loading U.S. crude has not started trading yet. Prices for November-loading WTI were traded on par with Murban in Asia, on deliver basis.

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS
Cash Dubai’s premium to swaps fell 67 cents to $1.63 a barrel.

NEWS
U.S. waterborne imports of crude from OPEC+ members including Saudi Arabia have dropped steadily over the last year, further tightening supplies in the U.S. while supporting other markets including Europe, according to flows data and analysts.

Equinor EQNR.OL on Friday cut its full-year oil and gas output guidance while posting a bigger-than-expected profit for the third quarter, boosted by the company’s trading unit.

Russia sent record volumes of sea-borne fuel oil and vacuum gasoil (VGO) to India in September, replacing some crude oil volumes, traders said and LSEG data showed.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Muyu Xu; Editing by Varun H K)