Kuwait’s crude oil exports to China plunge 49.2 pct in Oct

TOKYO, Nov 24, (Agencies): Kuwait’s crude oil exports to China plunged 49.2 percent in October from a year earlier to 311,000 tons, equivalent to around 73,000 barrels per day (bpd), for the third consecutive month of fall, latest official data by the Chinese government shows. Kuwait provided 1.6 percent of China’s total crude oil imports, compared with 2.7 percent in September, according to the General Administration of Customs. Kuwait’s exports in the first 10 months of 2009 totaled 5.95 million tons (144,000 bpd). China’s overall imports of crude oil in October rose 19.7 percent year-on-year to 19.34 million tons (4.58 million bpd). China is the world’s second-largest oil consumer after the US.

Angola came back as China’s top supplier with its shipments increasing 53.0 percent from a year earlier to 3.83 million tons (905,000 bpd), followed by Saudi Arabia with 3.82 million tons (903,000 bpd), up down 1.1 percent. Iran became third, with imports from the country shrinking 6.4 percent to 1.65 million tons (389,000 bpd). The planned 300,000 bpd refinery in the southwestern Guangdong Province, which is jointly owned by Kuwait and China, will be put into commercial operations as early as 2013. The project is expected to serve as a driving force for Kuwait towards achieving its China-bound crude oil export target of 500,000 bpd by 2015, state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) has said.

Also:
KARACHI: Pakistan State Oil (PSO) , the country’s largest fuel supplier, will import 3.5 millions tonnes of diesel from Kuwait next year, sources in PSO said on Tuesday. One industry source said that PSO was not expected to get a lower premium for its 2010 supplies from state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), despite the heavy stockpiles that have plagued the global market for most of this year. The supplies are for the January-June period, rather than for the whole year, the source said. The source added that PSO bought nearly 3.0 million tonnes for its July-December 2009 supplies, when premiums were less than $3.00 a barrel, on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis. “Premiums will not be lower despite ample supplies and low demand,” said an industry source. Sources added that PSO had earlier asked for a spot parcel from a Western trader at premiums of less than $3.00 a barrel, C&F basis, which it had wanted to use as a yardstick for the term negotiations with KPC. But it was unable to get that level for the spot cargo, industry sources said. PSO was trading down 0.59 percent at 299.25 rupees by 3:18 p.m. in a broader market which was up 0.04 percent.

Technical negotiations between Kuwait and Iraq are ongoing in order to achieve best exploitation of joint oil fields, said Assistant Oil Undersecretary for Technical Affairs Ali bin Sabt on Tuesday. Speaking to KUNA, he said that negotiations were ongoing to select a mechanism that would guarantee the rights of the two sides justly, as well as their interests. He added that several international case studies of relevance were currently being looked at, to help arrive at a joint agreement.

Oil experts said that oil prices see-sawing between $75 to 80 per barrel is normal due to the daily changes on world stockpiles of crude and other products which in turn reflect changing demand against demand on global markets.
The experts told KUNA that this price range is “good” and shows stability on the world market in light of the present economic situation and the cautious optimism over the near end of the meltdown.
Oil prices this year topped $70 pb for the first time last month as the world economy started its recovery. They said that prices which hovered over $150 pb resulted from specualtions based on geo-political concerns, mainly in the Middle East.
They added that economic growth in China, India and other developing markets played a vital role in shooting oil prices to such levels, projecting that such growth would also result in increasing global demand in light of rising needs for oil.
The National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) said in a recent world oil markets report that among factors supporting strong demand on oil are the industrial production index which rose in China and India in September and profits of companies which exceeded all expectations during the third quarter mainly in the United States.
It noted that as confidence in short-term economic recovery grows, projected demand on oil in 2010 has been upped by the International Energy Agency (IEA) by 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.4 million bpd, an annual climb of 1.7 percent.
Meanwhile, Opec and the International Center for Energy Studies project a growth of 700,000 and 800,000 bpd next year.

Oil prices hovered around the $80 mark as doubts over sustainability of economic recovery took shine off the positive economic data, Kuwait-based Global Investment House (Global) said in its monthly oil bulletin issued Tuesday. US GDP grew strongly by 3.5 percent QoQ on an annualized basis in 3Q-2009. However, more than half of the growth was accounted by car scrappage and incentives for first-time-home-buyer’s scheme, the bulletin noted. It added that with the expiry of these stimulus measures, the US economy is unlikely to witness similar growth in the 4Q-2009, pointing out that US crude decreased by 2.1 percent during the review period (Octr 20-Nov 19) to settle at $77.46 per barrel mark. World oil demand is expected to average 84.31 million bpd in 2009, a decline of 1.39 million bpd YoY.

MUSCAT: Oman expects oil prices to range between $70 and $80 a barrel in 2010, some 40-60 percent more than the $50 estimate the country is using for to calculate its budget, Oman’s national economy minister said on Tuesday. The independent producer is aiming for oil output of 870,000 barrels per day (bpd), up from a target around 800,000 bpd in 2009. If Oman reaches both targets, it would mark three consecutive years of oil output growth after several years of decline. If oil prices stayed at that level, Oman would see a much higher increase in revenues than that projected in the budget it unveiled on Tuesday. The budget assumed revenues of 6.38 billion rials ($16.57 billion) in 2010, 14 percent higher than in 2009.

Source: http://www.arabtimesonline.com/kuwaitnews/pagesdetails.asp?nid=39741&ccid=12