Oman Oil Price Falls a Second Month on Supply Gain june 2011

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Oman Oil Price Falls a Second Month on Supply Gain june 2011
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Oman crude’s official selling price fell for a second month in August as Saudi Arabia offered refiners extra oil supplies and the International Energy Agency agreed to release stockpiles.

The August official selling price for Oman oil will be $107.84 a barrel, based on the average of daily futures settlement prices on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange calculated by Bloomberg News. That’s 1.2 percent below July’s level of $109.20. Today’s settlement at 12:30 p.m. Dubai time was $105.99.

Open interest in the August Oman futures was 8,355 contracts as of 4:49 p.m. Singapore time, the equivalent of about 8.4 million barrels of crude, or about 16 cargoes of 500,000 barrels, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the lowest since August 2009, and compares with open interest of 11,210 a month earlier.

Prices declined after refiners were inundated with Saudi Arabia’s extra supply for July loading that processors from India, China and Japan purchased. Those barrels were followed by the release of crude and fuel from stockpiles in Japan and South Korea as part of an initiative by the International Energy Agency to release 60 million barrels of light, low-sulfur crude.

Refiners in Asia are also facing slumping refinery margins amid a decline in demand. Gasoil’s premium to Dubai crude, a measure of profitability, dropped 8.6 percent to $17.79 a barrel today from the start of the month, according to data from PVM Oil Associates Ltd., a London-based brokerage.

Oman futures for September delivery fell $1.45 to $106.15 a barrel on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange at 4:30 p.m. Singapore time, with 21 contracts traded.

Oman crude for immediate loading surged 82 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $106.55 a barrel, Bloomberg data showed. Dubai oil for delivery in August jumped 1 percent to $106.33. Murban increased 0.9 percent to $110.90.

The August Brent-Dubai exchange for swaps, which measures the European marker against the Persian Gulf grade, narrowed 3 cents to $5.07 a barrel, according to data from PVM Oil Associates Ltd. The exchange for swaps for September rose 5 cents to $4.78.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Schmollinger in Singapore at christian.s@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net