Sudan makes large offer for August Nile Blend

June 19, 2009 (LONDON) – Sudan has issued a new tender to sell 2.2 million barrels of heavy sweet Nile Blend crude for August loading, traders told Reuters today.

In May, Sudan managed to sell two 600,000-barrel cargoes of Nile Blend at a discount between $2.80 and $3.20 a barrel to Minas Indonesia Crude Price (ICP).

Minas, the benchmark for heavy sweet crudes sold in Asia, such as Nile Blend, normally trades below light sweet Brent crude, except at times of acute power shortages in Japan.

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.

(ST)