Med crude-Urals diffs unchanged in quiet trade, May loading dates awaited

MOSCOW, April 15 (Reuters) - Urals crude oil differentials remained stable on Tuesday amid low trading activity, while traders waited for loading dates for the grade in May.

Urals oil loadings next month are expected to remain rather thin as refinery maintenance plan doesn't show a rise in idle capacity for May leaving less volumes for exports, though the plan might be revised later this month, traders said.

Global oil demand will grow at its slowest rate for five years in 2025 and U.S. production rises will also taper off due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on trading partners and their retaliatory moves, the International Energy Agency said.

PLATTS WINDOW

• No bids or offers were shown for Urals, CPC Blend and Azeri BTC in the Platts window on Tuesday.

NEWS

• The petrochemical plant at Austrian oil and gas company OMV's OMVV.VI Schwechat refinery near Vienna suffered an outage on Tuesday, causing it to switch to high-flare operations that alarmed passersby and prompted calls to the fire brigade.

• Pakistan is considering importing crude oil from the United States for the first time to offset a trade imbalance that triggered higher U.S. tariffs, according to a government source directly involved with the proposal and a refinery executive.