Sudan sells late June Dar Blend to China
May 21, 2008 (SINGAPORE) — Sudan was likely to award a tender to sell 1.2 million barrels of late-June Dar Blend crude to Chinese trader Unipec, traders said on Wednesday.
Sudan had offered two cargoes — one 600,000-barrel cargo for loading on June 26-28, and the second for June 29-July 1 loading.
Price details had yet to emerge, but Dar Blend was last seen trading at deep discounts of between $20 and $25 a barrel to dated Brent, as the grade’s high acidic concent makes it unattractive to most refiners, while U.S. sanctions against the purchase of Sudanese goods also keeps many companies away.
Last month, Sudan sold an estimated 1.5 million barrels of Dar Blend crude for May loading through its first-ever spot tender for the acidic grade.
State-owned oil company Sudapet sells higher-quality Nile Blend crude via monthly tenders.
It was unclear if Sudapet’s spot tenders for Dar Blend crude meant the end of a marketing agreement with European trader Vitol, which has been selling most of the grade’s output on behalf of the different equity holders since the grade came on stream in 2006.
(Reuters)