Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has sold about 16 million barrels of Emirati crude at wider discounts in a fifth spot tender issued since June, trade sources said, underscoring a surge in spot supply.
ADNOC widened its pool of buyers to include Chinese independent refiners in the latest tender, although the producer also awarded cargoes at larger discounts to compete against rising supplies from other Persian Gulf producers, they added.
The latest sale brings ADNOC's spot crude sales through the tenders to more than 70 million barrels, according to Reuters calculations. The UAE exported 101.4 million and 95.2 million barrels of crude in January and February, respectively, before the US-Iran war effectively blocked flows via the Strait of Hormuz, Kpler data showed.
South Korea's SK Energy and India's Reliance Industries each purchased two million barrels of Das crude sold at a discount of about $6 a barrel to Dubai quotes, sources said.
China's Zhenhua Oil, Sinopec's trading arm Unipec, Shenghong Petrochemical, CNOOC and Dongming Petrochemical each bought two million barrels of Upper Zakum crude, they said.
Trading firm Cathay Petroleum also purchased two million barrels of the grade.
Upper Zakum cargoes traded at discounts of $7-$9 a barrel to Dubai quotes, sources said.
The cargoes are scheduled for loading in July and August.
The companies typically do not comment on their commercial sales. In earlier tenders, ADNOC sold crude to Nigeria's Dangote refinery and Turkey's Tupras to meet demand west of the Suez Canal, including from the US west coast, northwest Europe and the Mediterranean.
The UAE boosted crude oil and condensate exports to a record high in June, Kpler and Vortexa ship-tracking data showed, shortly after the gulf producer left OPEC.
(Reporting by Florence Tan and Siyi Liu in Singapore, and Nidhi Verma in New Delhi; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)