Pertamina buys eight cargoes of sweet crude

State-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina has bought a total of eight crude oil cargoes for April delivery in its monthly spot tender, the Dow Jones Newswires reported on Thursday from Singapore.

Pertamina bought 600,000 barrels each of Vietnamese Bach Ho and Rang Dong, Chinese Wenchang and Panyu, Bruneian Seria Light, as well as 500,000 bbl of Kazakhstan's Kumkol.

The company also picked up 900,000 bbl of Algerian Saharan Blend and 1 million bbl of Libyan Sarir, the official told Dow Jones Newswires.

The purchases excluded a further 3.3 million bbl to be supplied under term contracts.

Last month, Pertamina bought 3 million bbl for March.

The spot volume is Pertamina's largest intake in three months, and includes the company's first spot purchase of an Atlantic basin cargo in eight months.

Both Saharan Blend and Sarir are priced against North Sea Brent, which has been too expensive for supply to Asia.

With Brent futures in London still maintaining a premium of more than $6 a barrel to Dubai swaps, the arbitrage remains closed on paper. But freight rates have been coming off steadily, a factor that may have allowed Pertamina to buy from the Atlantic basin, traders said.

The following are Pertamina's purchases of April-delivery sweet crude (600,000 bbl unless otherwise stated):

GRADE	ORIGIN	SELLER
Bach Ho	Vietnam	Pacific Petroleum & Trading
Wenchang	China	Supreme Energy
Seria Light	Brunei	Supreme Energy
Panyu	China	Interoil Petroleum ( 500,000 bbl)
Saharan Blend	Algerian	Interoil Petroleum
Kumkol	Kazakhstan	Financial Resources
Rang Dong	Vietnam	BP PLC
Sarir	Libya	Petral ( 900,000 bbl)
*Tapis	Malaysia	Petroliam Nasional Bhd.
*Xijiang	China	Pasific Petroleum & Trading
*Benchamas	Thailand	Pasific Petroleum & Trading
*Seria Light	Brunei	Kipco
*Bonny Light/Qua Iboe	Nigeria	Petral (900,000 bbl)

*Denotes Term Purchase.(*)