Middle East Oil Producers Turn to Crude Trading to Boost Incomes

Middle East Oil Producers Turn to Crude Trading to Boost Incomes
Other OPEC members are joining in as oil prices remain at roughly half their levels of mid-2014.

Oman was the first Middle East producer to shift into trading, setting up a 50:50 venture with Vitol last decade.

OTI, which trades Omani crude, products and liquefied natural gas (LNG), was then bought out by the government and is now fully owned by state-run Oman Oil.

Other Middle East producers are now catching up. State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is considering setting up a trading unit.

"In line with ADNOC's strategy to stretch the commercial value of every barrel that we produce, we are in the early stages of exploring non-speculative, asset-backed trading and are in discussion with various potential industry partners," an ADNOC spokesman said.

Iraq's state oil marketer SOMO has teamed up with Russia's Lukoil in a venture in Dubai to trade crude, industry sources said in May. The venture might expand later into refined products and petrochemical trading, the sources said.

Kuwait is studying establishing a new firm to market refined products. The firm would help Kuwait sell products mainly from its refining venture at Duqm in Oman, an official from Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) told Reuters. (Reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Edmund Blair)


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