Urals buyers showing up at Primorsk for late July loading windows

This is my new favorite hobby.

Primorsk is busy again.  The tanker in the middle of the screen is the Minerva Alice, which I will be watching for the next few days and hope to post about.  It is currently en route to Rotterdam and at full capacity (13.9m draught).

via Reuters, 2 July 2012:

But they added that Surgut sold three July Urals cargoes
from the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk with a July 22-23 stem selling at a premium of around 15 cents to dated Brent, a July 24-25 stem slightly cheaper and a July 27-28 cargo at around dated Brent flat.

The buyers of Surgut's short sales have shown up for their loading windows and are currently moored off the island, also center screen.  They currently register draughts in the 8-9m range.  After loading they will reflect similar draughts as the Minerva Alice already underway currently at 12.6 knots.

The Isabella is currently in for loading:

Urals Blend Arbitrage Continues From Novorossiysk

The Urals arbitrage looks to be strengthening relative to the REBCO curve on Thursday.  Urals is a blend of light and heavy crude oils from West Siberia, the Ural Mountains in Russia, and flow from fields in the Caspian, an area rich in oil history.

Following an export suspension after a flood last week, Novorossiysk  is once again busy, adding 2 tankers between yesterday and today. 

Green icons are bulk traffic: wheat, coal, iron ore.  Red icons are chemical, crude, and gas tankers.  Live marine traffic data available here.

Several were stuck in rotation waiting for space through the passage at Istanbul, one of several major choke-points along the way.  Below is a picture of the congestion at 10:00pm Istanbul time.

And a closer look at the actual channel:

via Reuters,

Urals differentials in the south were still said to be strong on the back of tight supplies. The July programme is largely sold out with only part cargoes left.

    "It's all sold out. It's part cargoes changing hands at ridiculously high levels," said one trader.
    One Italian refiner has started taking Urals cargoes from North West Europe to the Mediterranean in a rare arbitrage movement, taking advantage of the north/south price gap, a trader said.

Immediate tanker (red icon) traffic at Primorsk, the main export terminal for Urals in the Baltic, remains surprisingly dry.

Urals blend arbitrage on strong Med demand

Russian export blend Urals is gaining strength on tight supplies in the region on the back of EU sanctions.  Above is the forward curve for the REBCO contract on CME.  While the REBCO contract is for delivery at a port much further north, Primorsk, the Med arb is said to be taking place between Novorossiysk and Spain.  

via Reuters,

"The arbitrage to the Mediterranean is open," said a trader
with a major house, adding he had heard that at least one
100,000 tonne cargo of Urals might be moving in this direction
from the Baltic.
    "If you want to bring a cargo to the Med, to Spain for
example, the arb is workable," said another trader with a large
company.

A snapshot of today's traffic at Novorossiysk shows several tankers and bulk carriers awaiting their loading windows.  The red icons are wet tankers while the green are dry bulk. 

WTI Forward Curve: Where Abundant Supply Meets Geopolitical Uncertainty

Several of the spreads on the front of the curve are nearing very compelling levels.  And if you're interested in a longer term play on WTI, consider the sloping severity of the back of the curve. 

via 4 Apr Reuters,

Traders said between 20-30 cargoes of Nigerian crude oil were still unsold from the April-May programmes.

"Flow to the States is minimal. Light, sweet is plentiful in the U.S. so there is limited W. African demand," said a West African crude oil trader.

via 4 Apr Reuters,

"There is certainly a discrepancy between futures and cash crude markets," said Olivier Jakob from Petromatrix consultancy. "There is no shortage in the physical market, but there is a lot of uncertainty regarding Iran. If you want to hedge Iranian risk, you do it on the futures market."

"The reality today is that the market is well oversupplied. OPEC production has been rising consistently since September and will probably continue rising further," said Colin Smith, energy strategist at VTB Capital.

"At some point - as happened in 2008 - the markets will take note, perhaps before it shows up in the inventories but certainly as and when it does show up in the inventories," said Smith, whose bank is a top lender to the Russian oil industry.

via 3 Apr Reuters,

Novorossiisk Port

Delays at Russia's main Black Sea port of Novorossiisk due to bad weather continued to crimp supplies in the Mediterranean in contrast with well supplied markets in the Baltic, where Russia opened a new export outlet of Ust-Luga last month.

"The arb between the Baltic and the Med is well open now... Some 300,000 tonnes might have already sailed," a trader with a major said, referring to arbitrage shipments from northern Europe to the Mediterranean where prices are around $1 per barrel higher.

"Everybody is waiting to see if the U.S. and EU will release strategic stocks," said a trader. "Nobody is buying."

via 3 Apr Reuters,

Nabiullina said that Urals blend URL-E crude price forecasts for the following two years have been left unchanged at $97 and $101 respectively, adding that the ministry expects oil prices to decline from current levels.

via 2 Apr Reuters,

"Supply is really ample here. You can see any kind of crude oil you can think of. West African, Caribbean, North Sea and so on," a trader with an oil refiner said.

via 30 Mar Reuters,

"Urals is typically depressed around April-May due to the spring maintenance season. This year you also have extra volumes from Ust-Luga," he added referring to a new Russian Baltic Sea port, which was launched earlier this month.

In the Platts window, Litasco offered a rare 60,000-tonne Siberian Light cargo at dated Brent minus 25 cents loading from port of Tuapse in mid-April, more than $1 per barrel weaker than previous price indications, but could find no buyers.  "A couple of other cargoes are still available and are being offered," one trader said.  Socar offered Azeri Light a dated Brent plus $3.50, slightly weaker than previous price estimates, but found no buyers, traders said.      

via 29 Apr Reuters,

Traders estimated that Glencore, the world's largest publicly listed trader, was set to market up to 10 Urals cargoes in the Baltic in April, a number not seen for many years while the market for Russian crude was dominated by other players. "Glencore is definitely coming back big," one trader with a major oil company said. "I would say they are now sharing leading positions with Shell and Statoil."