Dubai Mercantile Exchange hosted its latest auction yesterday, October 22, 2018, on behalf of Iraq’s National Oil Company, SOMO. The 2-million-barrel cargo of Basrah Light was awarded at a premium of $0.20 per barrel over the November 2018 Basrah Light Official Selling Price (OSP). SOMO increased its Basrah Light OSPs for November-lifting cargoes to Asia to Dubai/Oman +$0.60/b and to Europe to Dated Brent minus $3.75/b. For October-lifting cargoes, OSPs were set at minus $0.15/b and minus $4.00/b, respectively.
The cargo will load from the Basrah terminal on November 16-17, and the tender winner will have the option of taking the VLCC-sized cargo to Asia or Europe. Monday’s auction on the DME Auctions platform attracted 18 different companies. The second and third highest bids were OSP +$0.19/b and OSP +$0.15/b respectively.
DME Auctions was launched in 2016 in a bid to provide a transparent spot commodity auction system for the first time in the Middle East.
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