BAGHDAD: Taiwan is increasing oil imports from northern Iraq as local refiners take advantage of an open arbitrage to buy high-sulphur crude that can replace supplies cut by Opec.
State-owned CPC Corp bought one million barrels of Kurdish KBT crude for the first time in the second quarter, and Formosa Petrochemical Corp has resumed purchases of this grade after a near nine-month break, company officials said.
Oil tanker Kriti Sfakia loaded one million barrels of the crude at Ceyhan, Turkey in mid-March and will arrive at Formosa’s refinery in April, trade flow data on Thomson Reuters Eikon showed. Formosa will receive more cargoes in the following months, officials said.
“Kurdish? Yes, we bought quite a lot,” Formosa Petrochemical spokesman KY Lin told Reuters.
