LONDON, May 29 (Reuters) - West African crude continued to
be offered at high prices, but traders said a skyrocketing
Dubai-Brent spread was undercutting Asian demand while Western
buying interest remained flat.
* Partial outages which affected the Forcados and Amenam
streams, along with hoped-for Western demand during the summer
driving season, were pushing up Nigerian
differentials. * Major grade Bonny Light was being offered at around a
premium of $3.00 compared to dated Brent, its highest in around
six years.
* Still, traders said European demand for Nigerian crude had
remained relatively flat in June and July due to high prices and
access to alternative grades despite some outages originating in
Russia and in the North Sea.
* Angolan Girassol, another relatively light grade, was
being offered at around dated Brent plus $2.50, which if sold
would match its highest ever levels reached in late 2011.
* But traders said a recent spike in the Brent-Dubai spread
DUB-EFS-1M to around $4.10 - the highest in a year - was
sharply undermining buyer interest in Asia.
* Backwardation of the Brent forward curve LCOc1-LCOc2 was
also seen dampening demand, as the gap between front-month July
and August exceeded $1.50, its highest since September 2013.
* The winner of a tender by Indonesia's Pertamina which
closed on Tuesday has yet to emerge, and the company has until
May 31 to make the award.
* A buy tender from China's Sinochem closed on Wednesday,
after it bought a VLCC of West African crude last week.
* India's IOC has issued a tender for West African crude
loading July 22-31, which closes on Thursday.
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* Unexpected pipeline outages and refinery shutdowns over
the past week, in part caused by bad weather in the U.S.
Midwest, have roiled cash markets for both crude oil and refined
products, traders said on Tuesday. * Iranian crude exports have fallen sharply in May to around
400,000 barrels per day (bpd), tanker data showed and two
industry sources said, after the United States tightened the
screws on Tehran's main source of income.