Trafigura wins Petroecuador tender for 1.08 mln barrels of Oriente crude
QUITO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Commodities trader Trafigura PTE Ltd won a tender to purchase some 1.08 million barrels of Oriente crude for export, Ecuadorean state oil company Petroecuador said on Tuesday.
Trafigura offered to buy the crude at a price of $3.15 per barrel below West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures prices, the highest bid of five companies that participated in the tender, Petroecuador said in a statement.
The crude will be delivered in three cargoes of around 360,000 barrels each in August at Ecuador's Pacifi Balao port.
Separately, the company said Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited had won a tender to purchase 360,000 barrels of Napo crude for delivery in August at a discount of $7.06 per barrel to WTI crude.
Petroecuador is focusing on exporting more crude through sales on the spot market, rather than long-term supply contracts, to take advantage of an increase in international crude prices.
"It allows us to maximize economic benefits for the country," Petroecuador chief executive Pablo Luna said in a statement. (Reporting by Alexandra Valencia Writing by Luc Cohen; editing by Barbara Lewis)
