Middle East Crude-Benchmarks jump; Brent's to Dubai premium falls on US-Iran de-escalation

SINGAPORE, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Middle East crude benchmarks Oman and Dubai jumped on Monday, having stayed mostly as negative in the previous month due to ample supply pressure.

Previous lowered prices encouraged demand and lent some support to the market. Oman also rose to a one-week high.

Brent's premium to Dubai declined as oil prices fell 5% on Monday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran was "seriously talking" with Washington, signalling de-escalation with an OPEC member to ease supply disruption concerns. O/R

SINGAPORE CASH DEALS

Cash Dubai's premium to swaps rose 65 cents to 47 cents a barrel.

PRICES ($/BBL)

NEWS

U.S. private equity firm Carlyle CG.O has begun exploratory talks with UAE investors to bring in partners should its initial agreement to buy Russian firm Lukoil's international assets proceed, three sources with knowledge of the process said.

The United States, which threatened to impose tariffs on India last year for buying Venezuelan oil, has told Delhi it can resume those purchases soon to help replace imports of Russian oil, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

OPEC+ agreed to keep its oil output unchanged for March at a meeting, the producer group said on Sunday, even after crude prices hit six-month highs on concerns the U.S. could launch a military strike on OPEC member Iran.

Kuwait's al-Zour refinery ramped up fuel oil exports in January to all-time highs after recovering from an outage, with most of its cargoes bound for Southeast Asia, ship-tracking data showed on Monday.

For crude prices, oil product cracks and refining margins, please click on the RICs below.

(Reporting by Siyi Liu in Singapore; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

((siyi.liu@thomsonreuters.com;))