Med crude-CPC Blend differentials swing to premium for first time this year

MOSCOW, July 26 (Reuters) - Light Caspian CPC Blend crude differentials swung to a premium over Brent for the first time since December 2016 on Wednesday thanks to seasonal demand for motor fuels and lower scheduled exports for August.

In the Platts window, OMV (IOB: 0MKH.IL - news) bid for 85,000 tonnes of CPC Blend loading on Aug. 11-15 at dated Brent plus $0.05 a barrel, while BP sought a cargo of the same size for loading on Aug. 10-14 at parity, but neither bid found sellers, traders said.

Market participants said CPC Blend prices for August-loading volumes have rocketed due to lower planned supplies of the grade next month and high seasonal demand for fuels.

Asian buyers were also on the look out for CPC Blend and were ready to buy it at lower levels, traders said. Some said CPC Blend for August had been offered as high as 30 cents above dated Brent, but there were no confirmed deals at that level.

There were no bids or offers on Urals or Azeri BTC in the Platts window on Wednesday.

Traders said Indian and Chinese refiners were looking to buy August-loading volumes of Urals, despite its strong differentials.

TENDERS

Surgutneftegaz issued a tender on Wednesday to sell 340,000 tonnes of Urals crude for loading from Baltic ports and Novorossiisk in August, traders said.

It offered two Urals cargoes of 100,000 tonnes each for loading from Primorsk on Aug. 14-15 and Aug. 22-23 and 140,000 tonnes for loading from Novorossiisk on Aug. 19-20.

The tender closes on July 27 at 2 p.m. Moscow time (1100 GMT). (Reporting by Olga Yagova; editing by David Clarke)