Oil briefs

Dubai: Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) cut the December retroactive selling price of its benchmark Murban crude by $9.30 per barrel to $42.10, ADNOC said on Tuesday.

The November official selling price (OSP) for Murban was $51.40. Murban was set at a $1.57 premium to the December average for Dubai, which stood at $40.53 a barrel, versus a premium of $1.56 for November.

The rise was the first in the premium to Dubai for seven months. ADNOC cut the OSPs for Lower Zakum by $9.35 to $41.90 a barrel. It cut Umm Shaif by $9.25 to $41.10 a barrel. It set the Upper Zakum OSP at $38.75, down from $47.85.

Kiev, Moscow: The deepening economic crises that have gripped both Russia and Ukraine may make it harder to find a resolution to the row over cut-off gas supplies, analysts said on Friday.

Russian state-controlled gas behemoth, Gazprom GAZP.MM, halted supplies to Ukraine on New Year's Day at 0700 GMT, provoking memories of a similar cut-off three years ago that briefly reduced gas supplies to some European Union customers.There is little room for manoeuvre.

"The very severe financial stringency for both sides, but especially for Ukraine, will make this negotiation even more protracted than in previous gas crises," said Christopher Granville, managing director of Trusted Sources, an emerging markets research company in London.

Sofia: All supplies of Russian gas via Ukraine to Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and Macedonia were halted on Tuesday, officials in Sofia said, prompting emergency measures and the closure of two Bulgarian fertiliser producers.

Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler confirmed that supplies to his country from a western pipeline passing through Ukraine had been completely cut as a result of the Moscow-Kiev gas row.

Also affected was Romania, where Russian gas supplies were reduced by 75 percent from contracted levels, the state-controlled Transgaz pipeline operator said.

"We are facing a serious gas crisis, in which Bulgaria is a victim of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine," Bulgaria's Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said after an emergency meeting of government officials to discuss the situation.

Ankara: Russian gas supplies to Turkey from a western pipeline passing through Ukraine have been completely cut, Turkey's Energy Minister said on Tuesday, adding supplies from another pipeline would be raised to compensate.

"Gas from the western line was completely stopped this morning. Initially it fell to 32 million cubic metres then we were informed that it would drop to 17 million cubic metres and then it was completely stopped," Minister Hilmi Guler told reporters.

Turkey usually receives around 40 million cubic metres of Russian gas from the western pipeline in addition to around 35 million cubic metres from the Blue-Stream line which passes directly from Russia to Turkey under the Black Sea.

Supplies of gas delivered via the Blue-Stream pipeline would rise to 48 million cubic metres per day after a series of small rises over the past few days, Guler said.

New York: Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corp., the U.S. fuels and refining unit of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA, plans to suspend its program to provide discounted heating oil to poor U.S. communities, according to Citizens Energy, a nonprofit which helps Citgo distribute the heating oil.

Citizens Energy chairman Joseph Kennedy said in a statement Monday that Citgo was calling off its heating oil aid programs in the United States due to "falling oil prices and the world economic crisis."

Citgo spokesman Fernando Garay declined comment but said the company would release a statement regarding its heating oil aid programs later on Monday.

Citgo said in 2007 it was providing discounted heating oil to communities in 23 different states at 40 percent discounts and said it had spent $147 million on the heating oil aid program during the previous winter.