North Sea Crude-Forties bid higher as maintenance looms

LONDON, Sept 7 (Reuters) -

* North Sea Forties crude differentials rose on Wednesday, supported by higher bids for late September cargoes when maintenance is set to curb output.

* Flow through the Forties Pipeline System is building up after a brief outage on Sept. 4, trade sources said. Pipeline operator BP declined on Tuesday to give an estimate of how much flow had risen.

* Three September-loading Forties cargoes have been dropped, according to trade sources, and several others have had their loading dates delayed because of lower than expected supply.

* The Buzzard oilfield is set to begin a month-long maintenance shutdown in mid-September, reducing Forties output.

WINDOW SUMMARY

* Forties: Vitol sold to Glencore (Frankfurt: 8GC.F - news) a cargo loading on Sept. 21-23 at parity with dated Brent. It sold another cargo to Glencore loading Sept. 29-Oct (HKSE: 3366-OL.HK - news) . 1 on a ship-to-ship transfer basis from the Marbat at dated Brent plus 5 cents.

Petroineos bid for a Forties cargo loading on Sept. 25-27 at dated plus 30 cents. The overall activity boosted Forties from Tuesday's level of dated Brent parity.

* Ekofisk: Unchanged after being bid at dated Brent plus 35 cents, making it the cheapest benchmark grade when allowing for the Platts quality premium.

* Brent: Unchanged after being bid at dated minus 10 cents.

* Oseberg: Unchanged after a bid at dated plus 75 cents. (Reporting by Alex Lawler; editing by David Clarke)