Abu Dhabi is set to export more of its flagship Murban crude in April, two trade sources said on Friday, adding to already ample supply from producers in the Middle East.
State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) offered additional volumes to partners in the country’s onshore concession, the sources said. It was not immediately clear how much extra Murban supply there will be.
Partners in Murban crude producer ADNOC Onshore, which include BP, TotalEnergies, China National Petroleum Corp, Inpex, Zhenhua Oil and South Korea’s GS Energy, are entitled to about 40% of production of the grade at about 2 million barrels per day.
ADNOC, CNPC, Inpex, Zhenhua Oil and GS Energy did not respond immediately to Reuters’ requests for comment. BP and TotalEnergies declined to comment.
Bloomberg News reported on the additional Murban volumes earlier on Friday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the plans.
Saudi Arabia is also increasing its oil production and exports as part of the OPEC kingpin’s contingency plan in case any U.S. strike on Iran disrupts supplies from the Middle East. The rise in production from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates comes ahead of Sunday’s OPEC+ meeting. The group is likely to consider raising oil output by 137,000 barrels per day for April, sources said, after suspending production increases in the first quarter.
The rise in Murban supply has weighed on spot crude premiums that slipped in the past week to less than $2 a barrel to Dubai quotes for cargoes loading in April, Reuters data showed.
(Reporting by Devika Nair in Bengaluru and Florence Tan and Chen Aizhu in Singapore Additional reporting by Yousef Saba in Dubai, Joyce Lee in Seoul and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo Editing by Sharon Singleton, Philippa Fletcher and David Goodman )
