Egypt seeks 70,000T gasoil for Mar and June: trade

State-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corp (EGPC) is seeking two more cargoes of gasoil in the spot market, after already buying four cargoes late last month, industry sources said on Monday.

A natural gas pipeline that runs from Egypt to Israel was hit earlier this month, hitting supplies to Jordan. This has in turn increased demand for power generation fuel gasoil in the region.

Egypt has an existing half yearly term contract to buy about 480,000 tonnes of gasoil for delivery into Alexandria.

Jordan is separately seeking 350,000 tonnes of gasoil for delivery in March, supporting prices for high sulphur gasoil.

Egypt remains in political turmoil a year after a military council took over from President Hosni Mubarak, when popular demonstrations forced him to end his 30-year rule.

EGPC is now seeking two cargoes of 35,000 tonnes each of 0.2 percent sulphur gasoil for delivery over the second half of March and second half of June.

The tender closes on February 20 and is valid until March 2.

The company last awarded a tender to supply four gasoil cargoes in late January and in February at $25-$32 a tonne over Mediterranean quotes with normal 30-day payment terms agreed on.

The premiums were about 25 to 60 percent more than usual values achieved for spot cargoes, traders said earlier.