LOOP Sour crude becomes heavier, sweeter in July

LOOP Sour crude became heavier and sweeter in July, with an average API gravity of 29.6 degrees and typical sulfur content of 2.5%.

Additionally, more than 500,000 barrels of LOOP Sour was delivered from storage in July, according to data from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port.

LOOP Sour is comprised of the US Gulf of Mexico medium sour grades Mars and Poseidon and a crude blend called Segregation 17, into which the Middle Eastern grades Arab Medium, Basrah Light and Kuwait Export Crude can be delivered.

About 8.7 million barrels of Basrah Light were imported to Morgan City, Louisiana, in July. This represents a month-on-month increase of 5.2 million barrels compared with June. Other crudes imported into LOOP during July included heavy Merey and light sweet Santa Barbara from Venezuela and Maya crude from Mexico.

In related news, LOOP and Matrix Markets will host Tuesday their monthly storage futures auction for LOOP Sour capacity allocation contracts, Matrix announced last week.

The companies will auction 8,500 CACs worth the equivalent of 8.5 million barrels of storage. The front-month of September will see 1,200 CACs put up for sale while the most for any contract will be in Q1 2019, where 3,300 CACs will be auctioned. This month's auction total is a decrease from July?s 11,900 CACs that were offered. July's auction represented the most CACs offered since April 2015, while the August auction is a return to the yearly average amount.

The value of those CACs has traded between 5-8 cents/b since December 2017, when the minimum bid price LOOP will accept was lowered to 5 cents/b.