State-owned QatarEnergy has set the term price for al-Shaheen crude oil loading in March at a discount for the first time in years, trade sources said, tracking declines in spot benchmarks.
The company set the March term price at minus 33 cents a barrel to Dubai quotes, down from a premium of 53 cents for February-loading cargoes.
Excess supply has been weighing on the Middle East crude oil market, with benchmark Dubai slipping into a discount against swaps at the beginning of this year for the first time since December 2023.
QatarEnergy sold four cargoes at discounts at 32-35 cents a barrel to Dubai quotes to Totsa, the trading arm of TotalEnergies, and Unipec, the trading arm of Chinese oil major Sinopec, the sources said.
Separately, Qatar awarded a Qatar Marine crude cargo at a discount of $1.08 per barrel to Thailand's PTT. It also awarded a Qatar Land cargo to Indian refiner Reliance, they said.
The companies typically do not comment on commercial deals. All the cargoes are 500,000 barrels each.
(Reporting by Siyi Liu and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)