Sudan offers Dar Blend crude as South to restart exports
Sudan issued a tender to sell Dar Blend crude in November after parliaments in Khartoum and South Sudan ratified an agreement this week to end hostilities and restart southern oil exports, Reuters reports.
Sudan offered 1 million barrels of Dar Blend crude to be lifted November 7-9 on a free-on-board (FOB) basis from the Bashayer 2 terminal, a tender document showed. The heavy sweet crude is produced in South Sudan.
Trade sources said the cargo is oil from storage tanks instead of production from the oilfields. Southern officials said it would take a few months to restart output.
"Dar Blend production is significantly easier to resume than Nile Blend as its infrastructure was not damaged during the fighting between the two countries," said an industry source familiar with operations at the two African countries.
Sudan's parliament voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to ratify an agreement to end hostilities and restart southern oil exports, a day after South Sudan's assembly approved the deal.
South Sudan shut down its daily 350,000-barrel oil output -- which passed entirely through Sudanese pipelines -- in January following a row over transit fees.
Exports of another Sudanese crude Nile Blend resumed from July through equity holders China National Petroleum Corp, Malaysia's Petronas and India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC.NS) from production in Sudan.
CNPC will have three 600,000-barrel Nile Blend cargoes in November. It has offered one cargo to load on Nov 6-8 in a tender that will close today, sources said. The Chinese company also has a Nile Blend to load on December 8-10.
ONGC and Petronas will co-market a cargo for loading on November 20-22.
