North Sea Crude-Forties firmer; Chile, U.S. shipments eyed

* Forties trades at dated Brent plus 15 cents * Possible Suezmax shipment to Chile spied * European authorities raid oil majors LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) - North Sea Forties crudedifferentials firmed on Tuesday as Glencore bid up the market tosecure a cargo, with fixtures linking it to two potentialarbitrage shipments. Two suezmax fixtures under the name of ST Shipping have beensighted, set to depart Hound Point with Forties on May 25. STShipping is Glencore's shipping unit. The African Spirit will go to Chile and the Genmar Spartiatewill head to the U.S. Gulf Coast. One trader said both shipmentscould be going ahead. Rumours continued to circulated that a VLCC of Forties woulddepart for China's Ningbo port later this month. This has alsobeen linked to Glencore, but a vessel name has yet to emerge. Separately, European authorities have raided the offices ofoil majors Shell, BP and Statoil aspart of a probe into the suspected manipulation of oil prices. FORTIES * Statoil sold a cargo of Forties loading June 1-3 toGlencore at dated Brent plus 15 cents. This was much firmer thanthe last trade on Friday, when BP bought a Forties cargo loadingMay 25-27 at dated Brent minus 35 cents. * It was also firmer than Glencore's bid on Monday for aJune 1-3 cargo at dated Brent plus 5 cents. * Shell and Mercuria also bid for Forties. Shell targetedJune 4-7 cargoes, ending at dated Brent plus 10 cents, andMercuria sought May 26-28 cargoes, ending at dated Brent minus15 cents. OTHER CRUDES * There was also plenty of activity around other crudes.Shell bid for Oseberg loading June 7-9 at dated Brent plus $1.10and Mercuria bid for Ekofisk loading June 2-4 at dated Brentplus $1.05. * Both of these differentials were firmer than Mercuria'slast bids for Oseberg and Ekofisk on Monday, which came at datedBrent plus 70 cents. * Mercuria also bid for Brent loading May 29-31 at datedplus 15 cents. SWAPS * The swaps curve flattened out at the front end and valuesrose very slightly across the curve: 20-24/5 Jul -22 28-31/5 Jul -22 3-7/6 Jul -24 10-14/6 Jul -26 17-21/6 Jul -29 24-28/6 Jul -32 DATABASE