Trafigura Seeks Forties; Buzzard Oil Field Restarting After Halt

Trafigura Beheer BV failed to buy a North Sea Forties crude after picking up three cargoes this week. Tenergy Trading offered Russian Urals crude in the Mediterranean at a wider discount.

Nexen Inc. is in the process of resuming production at its 200,000 barrel-a-day Buzzard oil field after a brief outage yesterday, the company said in an e-mailed statement today.

North Sea

Trafigura was bidding Forties at 35 cents a barrel more than Dated Brent for Jan. 24 to Jan. 29 loading, according to a Bloomberg survey of traders and brokers monitoring the Platts pricing window. The trader bought two lots of the grade yesterday at a premium of 15 cents.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc withdrew an offer for Jan. 29 to Jan. 31 at plus 60 cents, the survey showed.

Brent for February settlement traded at $107.26 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange at the close of the window, compared with $107.38 in the previous session. The March contract was at $106.80, a discount of 46 cents to February.

“We have now commenced start-up procedures and expect production to stabilize and return to normal levels over the coming days,” Nexen said.

Trafigura Beheer BV chartered the supertanker Almizan Star to haul crude from Forties terminal Hound Point in Scotland for the Chinese port of Ningbo, according to fixture lists from Poten & Partners, SSY and Optima Shipbrokers Ltd. The vessel is scheduled to load on Jan. 23 at a cost of $6.6 million. A Geneva-based Trafigura official declined to comment on the tanker booking. The vessel will be the third to make the voyage from Hound Point to East Asia this month.

Urals/Mediterranean

Tenergy offered 80,000 metric tons of Urals crude for loading Jan. 19 to Jan. 23 at a discount of 85 cents to Dated Brent for delivery to Augusta, Italy. That compares with a bid from Arcadia Petroleum Ltd. on Jan. 6 at minus 70 cents.

Iraqi crude exports to Turkey were unaffected by an overnight sabotage at a pipeline linking oil fields in the Kirkuk region of northern Iraq to refineries, the country’s state-run North Oil Co. said in an e-mailed statement.

The country’s Kurds will start the sale of crude by the end of this month via a pipeline to Turkey’s port of Ceyhan, according to the website of semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. Exports will begin at 2 million barrels, increasing to 4 million by end-February, 6 million by the end-March and up to 10 million to 12 million barrels in December.

Tupras Turkiye Petrol Rafinerileri AS is seeking 85,000 or 140,000 tons of Urals for Jan. 25 to Feb. 5 delivery, a tender document obtained by Bloomberg News shows.

The refiner closed a tender today to buy 85,000 or 135,000 tons of Kazakh CPC Blend or Tengiz crudes for Feb. 1 to Feb. 10 delivery. The results weren’t available yet.

Libya’s Zawiya port will begin exporting Sharara crude next week, Ibrahim Al Awami, head of the oil ministry’s department of measurement and inspection, said today by phone from Tripoli. The tanks at the western port must be filled before exports from the recently reopened field can commence, Al Awami said. Sharara is currently producing 350,000 barrels a day, which is expected to increase to 400,000 barrels soon, he said.

West Africa

Indonesia’s state-run PT Pertamina bought 950,000 barrels of Nigerian Qua Iboe for March 8 to March 11 delivery to the Cilacap refinery, according to an official who asked not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media.

Indian Oil Corp.’s tender to buy crude for loading in March closed today, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News. Offers are valid until tomorrow.