Gulf News reported that Sudan has sold at least one tankerload of crude seized from South Sudan.

Industry sources said that Khartoum appears to have attracted buyers with a steeply discounted price as it looks to recover oil revenue from its former civil war foe.

A bitter row has escalated between the two over the value of the transit fee landlocked South Sudan should pay for oil pumped north by pipeline through its northern neighbor and exported from Port Sudan.

South Sudan is shutting down production in protest after Khartoum blocked exports and seized some of the oil as compensation. South Sudan's President Mr Salva Kiir accused Khartoum of having looted revenues amounting to roughly USD 815 million from crude cargoes.

Sudan sold one of those cargoes, 600,000 barrel shipment loaded on the vessel Ratna Shradha, to a North Asian trader. The final price of the sale was unclear but one trader said that the cargo was sold at a discount as steep as USD 14 per barrel. That would indicate an USD 8.4 million discount for the whole cargo versus the last official price charged by the South.

A Middle East based crude trader said that "This is crude from the South sold by the North at a $14 discount to the South's last selling price."

Traders said that the last time South Sudan sold Nile Blend cargoes, it did so at a premium of USD 2.50 per barrel to USD 3.00 per barrel to the benchmark Indonesian Crude Price. This would indicate that Sudan has sold the cargo at a discount of around USD 11 per barrel to the Indonesian price.

Sudan has also loaded two other cargoes of seized Dar Blend crude, but it is not immediately clear if they have sold those. Khartoum had offered these cargoes last week at a discount to official South Sudan prices. One of them is headed to Fujairah.

(Sourced from Gulf News)