Gunvor a Major Winner in Rosneft Oil Tender

MOSCOW, March 17 (Reuters) – Swiss-based buying and selling home Gunvor, which had been attempting to chop asset publicity to the Russian market, is among the many winners of a giant Rosneft tender, merchants mentioned on Tuesday.

Geneva-based Gunvor, which at one level dealt with as a lot as 40 % of Russia’s seaborne exports and was an everyday in time period offers with firms corresponding to Rosneft and Surgutneftegaz , abruptly halted its participation in main Russian crude oil tenders in 2012.

Gunvor mentioned on the time its determination was purely industrial.

Traders say that Gunvor might have returned to participate in tenders resulting from oil value volatility, which affords scope to earn a living even throughout extended interval of weak costs.

“There is huge volatility on the market and traders are very effective,” a dealer mentioned. State-owned Rosneft hardly ever publicly discloses the outcomes of its tenders.

Traders additionally mentioned Gunvor would elevate as much as 400,000 tonnes of Russian Urals crude monthly from the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk in April-September after it received the tender from Rosneft for the primary time in three years.

Russia-originated crude oil now makes up solely about 4 % of Gunvor’s total buying and selling.

Industry sources have mentioned one other dealer, Trafigura, is about to change into the most important exporter of oil from Rosneft beneath a deal it’s negotiating with the sanctions-hit firm.

Trafigura additionally might ship all of the CPC Blend cargoes from Novorossiisk as a part of the deal.

Rosneft has postponed the announcement of the tender outcomes to merchants, considerably minimize volumes on provide and requested patrons to comply with ‘zero optionality’, that means it may well nominate no cargoes to a winner in a given month if it decides to position volumes elsewhere.

Overall most volumes on provide for April-September have been minimize by round 2.5 million tonnes versus the earlier six-month tender.

Other firms that bought rights to elevate cargoes from Rosneft are Trafigura, Unipec, BP, Shell and Total .

Shell might elevate zero or one cargo from Primorsk, whereas BP has a proper for one tanker from Ust-Luga respectively. France’s Total, which was referred to as a “reserve buyer” within the tender, might elevate from zero to 3 parcels from the Baltic Sea ports.

Shell might export 80,000 tonnes of Urals from Novorossiisk, whereas China’s Unipec to ship a 140,000 tonnes parcel from the Black Sea port. (Reporting by Gleb Gorodyankin; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)