---

India's Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd. (BPCL) has offered two new fuel oil cargoes for loading in January - the oil firm's first lots for 2010, market sources said.

Scheduled for loading on January 10-14 from the port of Mumbai and January 20-24 from Kochi, the 380-centistoke (cst) cargoes each total 35,000-40,000 tonnes in size.

The tender is due to close on Wednesday 23rd December and will remain valid until Thursday 24th December.

Last week Bharat Petroleum issued a tender for the prompt sale of 30,000 tonnes of fuel oil scheduled for loading from Kochi on December 22-24 on a free on board (FOB) basis.

Bharat also recently sold two similar-sized lots for loading from Mumbai on December 15-21 and from Kochi on December 27-31. The parcels were understood to have been purchased by UAE-based fuel oil trader FAL Oil and oil major Shell at discounts of $11.00-$15.00 a tonne to Singapore spot quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.

Bharat Petroleum is a rare spot seller of fuel oil cargoes as it normally supplies the majority of its term cargoes to its joint venture partner Matrix Bharat Marine Services, which sells marine fuel at the world's leading bunker port, Singapore.

The oil firm offered its first spot cargo of fuel oil in about a year in early October when it sold a parcel of 380-cst to Japanese trading house Marubeni. The 30,000-tonne parcel was loaded on October 12-18 from Mumbai. Marubeni was reported to have paid around $4-5 per tonne below Singapore spot quotes on a free-on-board (FOB) basis.

Bharat had previously sold a 380-cst spot cargo in October 2008 when BP purchased 40,000 tonnes of the product for mid-October lifting.

The fuel oil market has weakened recently due to heavy supplies from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, whilst inflows from the West have also been high at over 3.5 million tonnes per month between October and December. However, the market has improved over the last four days with physical cargo differentials for 380-cst and 180-cst remaining in positive territory after having remained below that level for over a month.