Shell Fails to Buy Forties Oil; Angola Exports at 19-Month High
Royal Dutch Shell Plc failed to buy North Sea Forties crude at a lower premium to Dated Brent. Vitol Group sought to buy Russian Urals oil in the Mediterranean without success.
Angola, Africa’s second-largest oil producer, plans to increase its daily crude oil exports to the most in 19 months, according to a preliminary loading plan obtained by Bloomberg News.
North Sea
Shell was unable to buy Forties at $1.80 a barrel more than Dated Brent for Oct. 3 to Oct. 6 loading, or a premium of $1.70 to the benchmark for Oct. 6 to Oct. 9, according to a survey of traders and brokers monitoring the Platts trading window. The grade was last bid at $2.00 more than Dated Brent on Sept. 15.
BP Plc failed to sell a shipment for Oct. 6 to Oct. 8 at $3.10 more than the cash cost for North Sea crudes for November, and Vitol didn’t manage to buy at a premium of $1.50 to Dated Brent for Oct. 10 to Oct. 12, the survey showed.
Reported North Sea trading typically occurs during the Platts window, which ends at 4:30 p.m. London time. Before the window, Forties loading in 10 to 21 days was at $2.10 a barrel more than Dated Brent, down from the record high of $2.15 on Sept. 16, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Brent for November settlement traded at $109.66 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange at the close of the window, down from $112.02 on Sept. 16. The December contract was at $108.61 a barrel, $1.05 less than November.
BP resumed operations at its North Sea Valhall oil and gas field on Sept. 17 after being shut for almost two months following a fire, the company said in an e-mailed statement.
“Exports from BP’s Valhall production and compression platform restarted on Sept. 17 and will continue to ramp up over the coming days,” said Matt Taylor, an Aberdeen, Scotland-based spokesman for the company. “All reviews and assurances were completed successfully.”
Mediterranean/Urals
Vitol failed to buy 80,000 metric tons of Urals for Oct. 4 to Oct. 8 delivery to the Mediterranean at parity to Dated Brent, the survey showed. The grade was last sold at a discount of 40 cents a barrel on Sept. 12.
No bids or offers were made for Urals in northwest Europe. On Sept. 16, Shell sold 100,000 tons of Urals for Oct. 6 to Oct. 10 delivery to Rotterdam to Statoil ASA at a discount of 10 cents a barrel to Dated Brent.
West Africa
Angola will ship 57 cargoes totaling 54.4 million barrels, or 1.81 million barrels a day in November, the highest since April 2010, the plan showed. This is 10 percent more than 1.64 million barrels a day next month.
Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, plans to increase Qua Iboe crude shipments in November to 12 cargoes, one more than October, according to a loading program.
Nigerian benchmark Qua Iboe was at a $3.78 a barrel premium to Dated Brent, 10 cents less than Sept. 16, Bloomberg data showed.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sherry Su in London at lsu23@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net
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