Sudan offers Nile blend oil for November delivery

September 17, 2008 (SINGAPORE) – Sudan issued a new tender to sell 600,000 barrels of the Nile blend crude according to a trader who spoke to Reuters.

Sudan’s state oil firm (Sudapet) failed to make an offer for October delivery for unknown reasons. However the volume of the current tender is almost 50% less than the average of 1-1.2 million barrels per month (bpm).

The Greater Nile project which produces this heavy sweet, high-quality, Nile Blend crude has experienced diminishing productivity lately from 325,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 200,000.

This caused the India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp, which holds a 25 percent stake in the project, to put a halt on the monthly tenders as it reserved some of the equity for subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd.

Other equity holders in the field include China’s CNPC, parent of PetroChina and Malaysia’s state oil company Petronas.

Sudapet last sold in late July via a spot tender 1 million barrels of September-loading Nile Blend crude at a discount of $5.00 a barrel to Minas Indonesia Crude Price (ICP).

(ST)