Pertamina still in market for July oil
Saturday, July 1 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina was still in the market for additional July fuel oil cargoes after purchasing 600,000 barrels, Mandiri.Com reported on Saturday.
"Pertamina are still in the market for July barrels. They have been in talks for about one week now, but so far they have not done anything new," as quoted.
A week ago, Pertamina purchased three 200,000-barrel cargoes for fuel oil at a premium of about US$4.50 per ton over Singapore spot prices on a free-on-board basis, traders said.
Traders said Pertamina would be hard pressed to secure additional barrels at the same price because of the shutdown of the 485,000 barrels per day (bpd) Mina al-Ahmadi refinery in Kuwait on Sunday after a blast ripped through the plant.
Outright prices in Singapore have risen sharply since the fire.
A trade was done on Wednesday at US$182 per ton, up from a trade last Friday at US$171.90.
There were no deals on Thursday. In its last tender, Pertamina bought 1.4 million barrels of fuel oil for June delivery at premiums of about US$6 per ton.
June Minas ICP up
Meanwhile, traders said in Tokyo that the price of Indonesia's main Minas crude for June lifting has been calculated at US$30.68 per barrel, up US$2.72 from May. In Singapore, Pertamina has bought Vietnam's Bach Ho and Thailand's Benchamas crudes for August delivery.
This is in addition to earlier purchases of Forcados and Badin crudes, and brings its total buy for August to four cargoes, traders said.
Through post-tender negotiation, Pertamina bought around 600,000 barrels each of Bach Ho and Benchamas from Japanese trader Itochu Corp and Pacific Petroleum Trading (PPT) respectively. (*)