LONDON, Dec. 1 (Reuters) - Shell has won Russia's Rosneft major Urals oil tender in northwest Europe for a second time in a row confirming itself as the dominant force on one of the world's largest oil markets, a trading source said on Wednesday.
The source with direct knowledge of the tender results said Shell won most volumes from Primorsk in the first quarter of 2011 with Statoil coming second.
In the south, trader Warly, often linked by traders to major trading house Gunvor, emerged as a winner for all 80,000-tonne cargoes while Italy’s ENIand China’s CNPC will split 140,000 tonne cargoes.
Shell has emerged as a key player in the Urals market, the top export grade of the world’s largest oil producer, several months ago by winning tenders by Russian producers Rosneft, TNK-BP and Surgut.
Shell outbid previous market leader Gunvor by offering unusually healthy premiums to the big surprise of its rivals.
"It does not come as a surprise as Shell wants to play big and gave it a go again. The premiums seems still expensive to me," said a trader with a rival.
Shell has had rocky times in Russia, where it was forced to sell control in a giant liquified natural gas project on the Sakhalin island to gas export monopoly Gazprom after months of pressure from state ecology and tecnical compliance agencies.
But it has since then rebuilt its Russian ties by clinching cooperation deals with local oil firms and agreeing to pursue broader cooperation with Gazprom identifying rich oil and gas reserves of the Yamal peninsula as its key next focus.
Together with volumes, which Shell won at a TNK-BP annual tender for 2011, the major would control over a third of the overall export programme from Primorsk in the first quarter or even more, traders said.
The source with the knowledge of the tender results said premiums at the latest tender were a bit weaker than at the previous one but still represented 40-50 cents a barrel to a formula at which Rosneft tenders crude from Primorsk.
Premiums were unchanged for 140,000-tonne cargoes and were a bit weaker for 80,000-tonne tankers at around 30-35 cents to the formula.
Rosneft tendered 1.5-3.8 million tonnes of Urals in the first quarter from Primorsk, slightly up from 1.5-3.5 million in the fourth quarter.
In the south, Rosneft offered 0.48-1.44 million tonnes in 80,000-tonne cargoes and 0.42-1.4 million tonnes in 140,000-tonne tankers.
