Lower global oil prices and a jump in freight rates has caused a 15% slump in prices for Rosneft’s domestic oil tender for November supplies, traders said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Russia’s biggest oil company had its spot market freight rates for crude cargoes from the Middle East to Asia surging following U.S. sanctions on Chinese tanker companies.
Traders said the average price at the recent Rosneft tender fell to 20,801-20,896 rubles per ton ($326.30-$327.79). Sales volumes totaled 30,000 tons.
The traders said the prices are preliminary as they have not been confirmed by Rosneft’s pricing committee. The oil giant usually does not comment on its tenders.
Also on Tuesday, traders said that Rosneft sold a 100,000-ton cargo of contaminated oil to energy trader Vitol with a discount of more than $25 per barrel to dated Brent.
The hefty discount is far more than Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft’s offer of $15 per barrel to compensate for the excessive organic chloride content in oil.
A high level of organic chloride was found in late April in Russia’s Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline, which connects Siberian oilfields with Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic and Hungary. It was also detected in the Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga.
The crisis hit Russian oil output for months and has drawn multi-million compensation claims from buyers.
Up to 5 million tonnes of crude may have been contaminated by organic chloride, which is used in oil extraction. Traders such as Glencore and BP have been struggling to sell the tainted oil.