LONDON (Reuters) – High offer prices for West African crude grades continued on Friday as crude from the region sold relatively swiftly and at high prices, traders said.
* Uruguay’s Ancap closed a tender for early April-arriving crude, though results did not immediately emerge.
* Fewer than ten cargoes of March-loading Angolan crude remain to be sold, in a relatively fast trading cycle.
* Light crude grades from the region were doing especially well on perceived robust Indian and European demand.
* Still, European buying from the region has slowed since a spike in the middle of last month as some buyers seek crude with shorter shipping times to avoid high freight costs and a market structure which has discouraged long haul shipment.
* Nigeria’s Qua Iboe grade was last offered at dated Brent plus $3.50 a barrel, buoyed by slim volumes coming from comparable regional grades. Traders say the cargoes could sell for above dated Brent $3.
RELATED NEWS
* Shell and its partners have made what the oil major described as an “encouraging” discovery in a closely-watched exploration well off the coast of Namibia, which could spark a wave of investment in the south African country.
* Oil and gas will continue to meet the ‘baseload’ energy demand of India in “foreseeable future” even as the world’s third-biggest crude importer takes steps to move to cleaner sources to cut emissions, oil minister Hardeep Sing Puri said on Friday.
(Reporting by Noah Browning, Editing by Louise Heavens)
