Oil Search to sell Oct Kutubu crude after terminal restart
Oil Search will offer 600,000 barrels of Kutubu crude to load in mid-October as it has resumed operations at a shipping terminal in Papua New Guinea after about three weeks of repairs, a company official said, Reuters reports.
"We will have one cargo loading in mid-October and the September cargo will be loading in early October," Ann Diamant, the company's spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
The resumption will ease a tightening of prompt light sweet crude supply in Asia which, together with strong refining margins and less arbitrage supply from the Atlantic Basin, had pushed up prices for similar grades.
Oil Search stopped production of about 5,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Kutubu crude in early August after shutting the Kumul terminal due to an oil leak.
The producer was restoring crude production at the fields last week after the terminal resumed operation on Aug. 22, the company said.
It had delayed the loading of two cargoes that were sold for August and September by a few weeks, an industry source said.