SINGAPORE: Chinaoil, trading arm of state refiner PetroChina, has been the most active player on crude oil during the Asian Platts window this month, signalling its aim to become a major market force, rivalling peer Unipec.

It is only the third Asian firm, after South Korea’s largest refiner SK Energy and Unipec, trading unit of Asia’s top refiner Sinopec, to actively participate in the trading window dominated by majors such as Shell, BP and Total, as well as large independent traders such as Vitol and Glencore.

Chinaoil bought at least eight partial lots of Dubai crude for June loading, making it the most active buyer of the Middle East marker grade so far this month. The company, which has four crude traders in Singapore, also bought one partial lot — 25,000 barrels — of June Oman crude in the Asian trading window.

It purchased a cargo of Russian Urals grade for April 20-24 loading during the London window, which it was unlikely to resell to PetroChina refineries, traders said. Traders said it may be a sign that Chinaoil is trying to beef up its clout as an international trading firm and have more say on pricing, as refiners in China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer, imported 3.85 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude in March, the highest in a year.

However, some international traders said Chinaoil’s trade activities on the window might hurt PetroChina’s own refineries. “Chinaoil is very aggressive these days, trying hard to boost its international trading volumes, but it is not necessarily due to domestic demand,” said one trader. “They want to make more money from trading than just buying crude for their parent.”

Founded in 1993, Chinaoil has been buying large volumes of crude for PetroChina, Asia’s largest oil and gas producer and the second-largest refiner, but mostly on the over-the-counter (OTC) market. It only turned to the Platts window this year.

Traders said Chinaoil might be holding some positions and is actively buying Dubai and Oman, used to price a total 12 million bpd of crude exported from the Middle East to Asia, to obtain better pricing. “It may have some positions in paper or spot, and won’t be a small volume, otherwise it would not be doing it,” another trader said. Around a fifth of PetroChina’s crude slate is sour grades, which are mostly priced off Oman and Dubai.

Trade in small lots of Dubai/Oman crude, or partials, was introduced in February 2004 by reporTing agency Platts to spur liquidity by attracting more players. Platts, a unit of McGraw-Hill Companies Inc, takes partial deals into account to assess Oman and Dubai.

But active buying can lead to higher prices for Dubai and Oman, making Middle East crude, which is largely priced off Platts quotes, more costly for refiners. “PetroChina’s trading arm is clearly hurting its own refineries and the overall company, and all other refiners in the region too,” said a third trader.

Chinaoil bought eight partials of Dubai partials from SK Energy this month, at between $51.10 and $52.30 a barrel, and one Oman partial from the South Korean refiner at $51.55. Last month, Unipec re-offered up to 7 million barrels of crude for delivery in Asia on the Platts window, pressuring down prices in the region.

Earlier this month, Chinaoil — which has also expanded its trading team in London and hired several foreign traders — bought a Urals cargo from European trading firm Gunvor for April 20-24 at dated BFOE minus $2.30 a barrel, the first time it had bought Urals via the Platts window, traders said.