Asia-Pacific Crude-Light sweet up on strong demand

SINGAPORE, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The Asia-Pacific light sweet crude market rose on Friday as demand for January-loading Malaysian crude rose and after India's ONGC cancelled a tender to sell January Russian Sokol cargo.

Traders said the strong demand for January Malaysian crude could be because of a drawdown of stocks by the end of the year.

"It looks like the bids are very strong," said a trader.

"I think because people have drawn down stocks before the year end, so they are keen to buy in January."

On the heavy crude market, Taiwan's CPC Corp delayed the award of its heavy sweet tender as there is still a gap between bidding and selling prices.

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- India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has cancelled a tender to sell 700,000 barrels of January-loading Russian Sokol crude as its subsidiary Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals (MRPL) is buying the cargo, sources said. [ID:nDEL512709]

- Taiwan CPC put off award of a tender to buy heavy sweet crude for January loading.

Fuel oil crack spread weakened to a discount of $4.60-$5.00 for most of the past two weeks, but bids for the heavy sweet tender are higher-than-expected, said a source.