Russia’s Surgut offers eight May-loading ESPO crude cargoes in spot tender

Russia’s Surgutneftegaz has issued a spot tender to sell eight 740,000-barrel cargoes of ESPO Blend crude loading in May, a tender seen by Reuters showed on Monday, kicking off Asia’s front-month trading cycle for the grade.

Surgut has offered cargoes to load over April 30-May 5, May 3-8, May 7-14, May 10-17, May 14-21, May 17-24, May 21-28 and May 25-31. The tender will close on Tuesday with bids valid till the same date.

The ESPO crude loading programme is expected to be large in May, trade sources said, partly due to a major turnaround planned by PetroChina’s subsidiary refinery, Dalian Petrochemical Corp, in April-May. The 410,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) plant is linked to Russia’s ESPO pipeline and is China’s largest processor of the pipeline ESPO blend crude.

There could be more than 30 ESPO crude cargoes in May, one of the sources said.

Sellers of ESPO crude, a popular grade among China’s independent refineries, have been hit by lower demand and lower spot premiums due to the global outbreak of coronavirus that originated in China.
Source: Reuters (Reporting By Shu Zhang and Olga Yagova; Editing by Edmund Blair)