W. Africa Crude-Traders mull impact of Libyan shutdowns
LONDON, Aug 27 (Reuters) -West African crude differentials were steady on Tuesday as traders and analysts mulled the possible impacts of Libyan production stoppages on West African crude grades.
* Several oilfields across Libya have halted output as closures spread, engineers said on Tuesday, amid a dispute over control of the central bank and oil revenue.
* A Libya outage could soon boost values for West African crudes, and could help to reverse a weakening market amid a seasonal dip in demand stemming from the autumn refinery maintenance season, Kpler lead crude analyst Viktor Katona said.
* Traders said around 15 Nigerian September-loading cargoes remain unsold, little-changed from previous estimates.
* A stronger backwardated structure in the Brent futures market LCOc1-LCOc2 is influencing West African price discussions, one source said.
* West African cargoes lose value in steep backwardation between loading and arrival due to long voyage times to demand centres in Europe or Asia relative to more local grades to those areas.
Reporting by Robert Harvey
Editing by Tomasz Janowski
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