Several Asian refiners bought November Saudi crude in the spot market as Saudi Arabia pushed to move more oil out of the Strait of Hormuz, sources with knowledge of the matter said.
Chinese state-owned and independent refiners bought at least 12 million barrels of Saudi crude on a delivered basis, three sources said. Another two sources said Saudi has sold oil for November-loading on a delivered basis to refiners in India and Taiwan.
Some of the delivered crude was priced at a premium of about $20 a barrel to November official selling prices (OSP), the people said.
The sales were made through a tender issued by state oil company Saudi Aramco last week as well as through private negotiations, they added.
Saudi Aramco declined to comment.
Saudi Arabia typically releases its OSPs at the beginning of each month and asks term buyers to nominate monthly volumes. However, it has now shifted volumes via the Strait of Hormuz to spot sales instead because buyers refrained from chartering ships to load crude inside of the strait due to security risks amid the Iran war, two of the sources said.
Aramco is maintaining allocations for cargoes loading at the Red Sea of Yanbu and Egypt's Sidi Kerir, the people said.
The state oil company set its November OSP for flagship Arab Light at $5 a barrel below the average of Oman and Dubai prices, a six-year low, as it sought to attract purchases and compensate buyers for elevated freight rates.
Saudi, the world's biggest oil exporter, has boosted its exports via the Strait of Hormuz since September.
Kpler data on Monday pegged Saudi crude exports at 6.67 million barrels per day in September, a seven-month peak and back to pre-war levels.
(Reporting by Siyi Liu and Florence Tan in Singapore and Nidhi Verma in New Delhi; Editing by Susan Fenton)
