IOC offers 85KT naphtha for late Jan loading

SINGAPORE, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Indian Oil Corp. (IOC) , which sold four naphtha cargoes for December loading, will award its tender to sell three January-loading cargoes on top of its single sale made for the month, a trading source said on Friday.

IOC's fresh 85,000-tonne naphtha offers for January will help lift India's total naphtha export volumes for January loading to 485,000 tonnes. But it is still far below India's average export volumes of 500,000-600,000 tonnes a month.

For February, Indian refiners have so far offered below 200,000 tonnes.

IOC offered the cargoes as follows: TONNE LOADING/PORT 30,000 Jan 14-17/Kandla 30,000 Jan 27-30/Kandla 25,000 Jan 22-25/JNPT in Mumbai Note: JNPT stands for Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust in Mumbai.

IOC last month sold 25,000 tonnes of naphtha for loading on Jan. 6-9 from the port of Mumbai to South Korean refiner SK Corp. , though the price was not known.

For December loading, the state-run refiner also offered two cargoes each from Kandla and Mumbai. It sold one lot for Dec. 20-24 from Kandla to Total at a -a-tonne premium to Middle East spot quotes, on a free-on-board (FOB) basis, and one lot for Dec. 23-26 from Mumbai to Vitol at a .70-premium to the same quotes, FOB.

IOC had sold one early-December cargo from JNPT to Glencore at a discount of between and a tonne to Middle East spot quotes, on an FOB basis, and one early-December lot from Kandla to Emirates National Oil Co. (ENOC). But the sale price was not available.

REUTERS CS SSC1349