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MOSCOW, March 17 (Reuters) - Swiss-based trading houseGunvor, which had been trying to cut asset exposure to theRussian market, is among the winners of a large Rosneft tender, traders said on Tuesday.
Geneva-based Gunvor, which at one point handled as much as40 percent of Russia's seaborne exports and was a regular interm deals with companies such as Rosneft and Surgutneftegaz, abruptly halted its participation in major Russiancrude oil tenders in 2012.
Gunvor said at the time its decision was purely commercial.
Traders say that Gunvor may have returned to take part intenders due to oil price volatility, which offers scope to makemoney even during prolonged period of weak prices.
"There is huge volatility on the market and traders are veryeffective," a trader said. State-owned Rosneft rarely publiclydiscloses the results of its tenders.
Traders also said Gunvor would lift up to 400,000 tonnes ofRussian Urals crude per month from the Baltic Sea port ofPrimorsk in April-September after it won the tender from Rosneftfor the first time in three years.
Russia-originated crude oil now makes up only about 4percent of Gunvor's overall trading.
Industry sources have said another trader, Trafigura, is setto become the largest exporter of oil from Rosneft under a dealit is negotiating with the sanctions-hit company.
Trafigura also may ship all the CPC Blend cargoes fromNovorossiisk as part of the deal.
Rosneft has postponed the announcement of the tender resultsto traders, significantly cut volumes on offer and asked buyersto agree to 'zero optionality', meaning it can nominate nocargoes to a winner in a given month if it decides to placevolumes elsewhere.
Overall maximum volumes on offer for April-September havebeen cut by around 2.5 million tonnes versus the previoussix-month tender.
Other companies that got rights to lift cargoes from Rosneftare Trafigura, Unipec, BP, Shell and Total.
Shell may lift zero or one cargo from Primorsk, while BP hasa right for one tanker from Ust-Luga respectively. France'sTotal, which was called a "reserve buyer" in the tender, maylift from zero to three parcels from the Baltic Sea ports.
Shell may export 80,000 tonnes of Urals from Novorossiisk,while China's Unipec to ship a 140,000 tonnes parcel from theBlack Sea port. (Reporting by Gleb Gorodyankin; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin;Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
