Middle East crude steady even as Brent/Dubai EFS widens to over 3-month high

New York — Front-month Brent/Dubai Exchange Futures for Swaps spread widened to a three-month high mid-morning of June 17, as market participants await for the outcome of Qatar's Al-Shaheen crude tender that closed June 16 evening.

The August Brent/Dubai EFS was pegged at 95 cents/b at the 11 am in Singapore on June 17 (0300 GMT), up 18 cents/b from the 77 cents/b assessed at the Asian close on June 16.

The EFS was last higher on March 9 when it was assessed at $1.17/b, S&P Global Platts data showed.

Market participants were still awaiting the outcome of Qatar's Al-Shaheen tender which closed late June 16. In that tender, Qatar Petroleum for the Sale of Petroleum Products, or QPSPP, is offering two 500,000-barrel cargoes of Al-Shaheen crude for loading over August 2-3 and August 29-30.

While the value of medium, heavy sour grades was expected to be held up by allocation cuts, traders noted that lighter sour grades may not be as supportive.

"Margins for lighter grades are not so good and [the] OSPs [for the light sour grades were] too high. [It is a] very difficult market, so we [will] wait and see," said a crude trader with a North Asian refiner.

The August Dubai futures, meanwhile, was pegged at $39.34/b mid-morning June 17, down 0.3% from the 4.30 pm Singapore close (0830 GMT) on June 16.

The July/August Dubai crude futures spread was pegged at parity on June 17 morning, up from the minus 2 cents/b premium assessed at Asian close on June 16.

The August/September spread also rose to minus 24 cents/b in the morning of June 17, up from minus 27 cents/b assessed at the Asian close on June 16.