Chinaoil to sell first Sudan gasoline in October

SINGAPORE, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Chinese state-trader Chinaoil is looking to sell its first gasoline cargo from Sudan after winning a tender to lift the product at the end of October, a Chinaoil trader said on Tuesday.

Chinaoil, a unit of China’s largest state-oil group CNPC, won the 25,000-30,000 tonne cargo for lifting from Port Sudan in the Red Sea in a tender floated by Sudan state-oil firm Sudapec.

“We are looking for buyers. We can either sell free-on-board Port Sudan to traders, or move the cargo to the Middle East or elsewhere, depending on the netback value we get,” the trading manager said.

He said the octane levels of the cargo could be adjusted to suit the buyer.

The tender offered cargoes of 25,000-30,000 tonnes twice a month for October to December.

Participants included western traders such as Vitol and Glencore and also Japanese trading houses, he said, without elaborating on who won the other cargoes or the prices.

CNPC owns a 40-percent stake in Sudan’s Greater Nile crude project, which is expected to produce 14 million tonnes of crude in 2003, up from 12.68 million tonnes in 2002, a senior CNPC said in July.

The Chinese oil giant also owns major stakes in two other blocks due to start production in the next few years.

CNPC and Sudapec have an equal share in a 50,000 barrels per day refinery in the capital Khartoum, but they plan to expand the plant to produce 90,000 bpd.

The Chinaoil manager said the expansion was due to be completed in the second quarter of 2004.