ZAWYA: SINGAPORE - Iraq's state oil marketer SOMO has offered steep discounts on its August-loading Basrah crude to entice buyers to lift cargoes from inside the Strait of Hormuz, a document reviewed by Reuters showed.

SOMO invited term buyers to nominate their contractual volumes of Basrah Medium or Basrah Heavy crude on a free-on-board basis from the Basrah Oil Terminal or Iraq’s single-point moorings and associated facilities, the document showed.

For Basrah Medium, SOMO offered discounts of $25 to $27 a barrel to the relevant destination benchmarks, depending on the loading window. It offered discounts of $27.80 to $29.80 a barrel for Basrah Heavy.

SOMO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Visible traffic in the key waterway Strait of Hormuz slowed over the weekend following reports of vessel attacks, shipping data showed on Monday.

The very large crude carrier (VLCC) Noble, which loaded Iraqi Basrah crude on July 25, exited the strait on Friday and is heading to China.

Separately, PetroChina has provisionally chartered the VLCC Jamaica Prosperity to ship from the Gulf region to China, with loading to take place around August 3 at Iraq's Basrah port, shipping fixtures showed on Friday.