Pacific Rubiales awards Colombian Vasconia crude tender to Statoil -traders

Petrominerals

20/02/2014 17:34

HOUSTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Norway's Statoil bought a 500,000 barrel cargo of Colombian Vasconia medium crude, offered this month on the open market by private Canadian oil company Pacific Rubiales  PRE.TO  and its subsidiaries, traders told Reuters on Thursday. Traders added that the price agreed was very close to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for March, but they did not elaborate. The cargo will be delivered on March 2-6 at Covenas port, Colombia. The volume sold will come from the Ocensa pipeline, according to the invitation sent by Pacific earlier this month. Traders said that Statoil could send a VLCC (very large crude carrier) of Vasconia crude to Asia, after buying several cargoes of the same crude on the open market from Pacific and state-run Ecopetrol  ECO.CN . But the Norwegian company could also use the Vasconia crude to feed refineries in the east coast.  Statoil was not immediately available to comment. Pacific Rubiales, the largest private oil producer in Colombia with more than a tenth of the country's output, sells 4-6 monthly cargoes of crude on the open market. Since last year it bought another Canadian firm, Petrominerales  PTRO.PK , it is offering an increasing volume of oil. Since last year, the Canadian firm is only accepting offers for its cargoes indexed to WTI, trying to take advantege of the wide spread it still exists compared to Brent crude. It's main costumer is the United States, but the company is increasing sales to Europe, looking for better prices while domestic production in North America desplaces purchases of foreign oil. (Reporting by Marianna Parraga; editing by) ((marianna.parraga@thomsonreuters.com)(+1 713 2108510)(Reuters Messaging: marianna.parraga@thomsonreuters.com)) Keywords: OIL COLOMBIA/TENDER