Middle East Crude-Benchmarks strengthen on strong buying interest

SINGAPORE

, Feb 23 (

Reuters

) - Middle East crude benchmarks strengthened on Thursday as

Oman

rebounded and strong buying interest propped up Dubai. Reliance sold nine April

Dubai

partials to Chinaoil, Gunvor, Shell and

Vitol

with the last trade at $54.84 a barrel. That placed Dubai at 10 cents below swaps, a rise of 8 cents from the previous session. Taiwanese refiner

CPC

may have bought a cargo each of

Upper Zakum

and Banoco Arab Medium for April loading, a trader said, although this could not be independently verified. ONGC sold a

Sokol

cargo for April 6-12 loading via a tender to a Chinese buyer at about $2.50 a barrel above Oman/Dubai quotes, traders said. The premium was down from about $3.50 a barrel fetched for a March-loading cargo. *PRICES ($/BBL) CURRENT PREV SESSION

DME OMAN

55.66 55.36 DME OMAN DIFF TO DUBAI 0.72 0.53 CASH DUBAI 54.84 54.65 *REFINERY

Malaysia

's state oil firm

Petroliam Nasional Bhd

(

Petronas

) and

Saudi Aramco

are expected to sign a deal to collaborate in Malaysia's Refinery and

Petrochemical Integrated Development

(RAPID) project, two industry sources said. *MARKET NEWS An energy agreement bringing Iraqi crude oil to

Egypt

is being finalised and a first shipment of 1 million barrels per month will arrive in the last 10 days of March, Iraq's ambassador in

Cairo

said on Wednesday. Norway's oil companies have increased their 2017 investment plans in the last three months, signalling a smaller-than-expected contraction for the industry, a survey by the statistics office showed on Thursday. U.S. oil company

Exxon Mobil Corp

has revised down its proved crude reserves by 3.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent as a result of low oil prices throughout 2016, a company filing showed on Wednesday. For crude prices, oil product cracks and refining margins, please click on the RICs below. Brent Dubai DME Oman Brent/Dubai EFS PRODUCT CRACKS Fuel oil crack Gasoil crack Naphtha crack Complex refining margins (Reporting by

Florence

Tan; editing by David Clarke)