Med Crude-Urals eases despite short programme

MOSCOW/LONDON Feb 2 (Reuters) - Russian Urals crude was pegged at lower levels on Thursday amid limited buying interest, while the arbitrage window to the United States and Asia was shut, industry sources said.

"I do not expect there will be any arbitrage window for Urals in February. It was open in the middle of January for quite a while, but I haven't seen it since then", one of the traders said.

Maintenance on the pipeline that feeds into Primorsk on the Baltic Sea, scheduled for Feb. 13-17, seemed to have less effect on the market as trade shifts into the second half of the month.

"It seems there are plenty of offers around," a source with a major told Reuters.

URALS

* Litasco offered 100,000 tonnes of Urals URL-NWE-E for Feb. 13-17 at premium of 55 cents to Dated Brent benchmark, but failed to find a buyer, traders said.

"Buyers are not willing to pay high numbers on Urals," a trader with a refiner told Reuters.

* On Tuesday Shell offered 100,000 tonnes for Feb. 16-20 at premium of 80 cents to Dated Brent, having started offering the cargo at a $1 premium, but no trade was done.

* "The hike in price scared off buyers a little bit," a trader said.

* In the Mediterranean no discussion was reported in the publicly traded window on Thursday. Urals cargoes for loading in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk were assessed at Dated Brent plus $0.20-$0.30 a barrel.

TENDER

* Russian state oil company Rosneft's closed a tender for six 100,000 tonne Urals parcels to be loaded at Primorsk in March, trade sources said, but details were slow to emerge.

* Turkey's Tupras has bought CPC Blend for loading between late-February and early March from a trader via a tender. Further details did not emerge.

AZERI LIGHT

* There was no activity on Azeri Light AZR-E in the Platts window. It was assessed at around dated plus $4,25 a barrel, but growing Libyan oil supplies weighed on the grade.

* One trader said two cargoes of Azeri Light for loading in late February changed hands earlier this week at dated Brent plus $4.25.

LIBYA

* Libya's Arabian Gulf Oil Company (Agoco) is producing around 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) and hopes to reach full production in April, later than previously thought because of electricity problems at some fields, a spokesman said on Thursday.

* The Benghazi-based company had previously said it expected to return to full production of 425,000 bpd by the end of February. However a delay in restoring full power at some oilfields has meant this has been pushed back.

* Shipping fixture shows three aframax tankers have been booked from Libya to Mediterranean. The tanker names, loading dates and charters were: Trident Hope for Feb. 6 by Tamoil; CE Merapi for Feb. 7 by Saras and unspecified for Feb. 7 by Repsol.

DATABASE

For a database of oil supply and demand fundamentals upstream and downstream, Reuters subscribers can click here (Reporting by Gleb Gorodyankin in Moscow and Ikuko Kurahone in London, editing by William Hardy)