India sells 600k of Nile Blend for December

October 23, 2009 (LONDON) — India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has sold via tender a 600,000 barrel-cargo of heavy sweet Nile Blend crude for December, trade sources told Reuters today.

The Indian oil company awarded the cargo to Mitsubishi at a discount of around $1.30 a barrel to Minas Indonesia Crude Price (ICP), the sources said.

This is a similar to a previous tender which ONGC awarded to Unipec.

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.

(ST)