Russia cuts the price of oil, Arabia raises it
The energy world has gone a bit crazy: on the one hand Russia offers a record premium for placing its Ural oil, on the other Saudi Arabia allows itself to ask its Asian customers for a very high premium, as Bloomberg has shown .
The surge in oil prices and the "buyers' strike" to buy Russian crude oil could be an opportunity for Russia's key ally in the OPEC + pact, OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia, to increase its official selling prices (PSO) at another all-time high compared to the Oman / Dubai benchmark, outside of which Middle Eastern crude is priced in Asia.
According to Bloomberg's survey of five traders and refiners, Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco could increase its May PSO for Asia for Arab Light, the Kingdom's flagship grade, by a handsome $ 5 a barrel for a premium of nearly $ 10 a barrel over Oman / Dubai Landmark.
In early March, Saudi Aramco raised the April price in Asia for its flagship grade to $ 4.95 a barrel of premium on Oman / Dubai, which was Arab Light's biggest ever premium on the benchmark. of the Middle East.
If Saudi Aramco raises the price of Arab Light for May as much as traders and refiners in the Bloomberg survey expect in early April, Arab Light will be sold in Asia in May at a premium of $ 9.95 per barrel over the benchmark. Oman-Dubai. This would be a new record spread for Saudi crude oil prices in Asia.
Saudi Arabia generally sets the price trends of the other major oil producers in the Middle East and usually sets PSOs for its crude oil for the following month around the fifth of each month, usually after the monthly OPEC + meeting.
The OPEC + group meeting is scheduled for March 31, and producers have signaled that they will keep the production plan as is, i.e. increasing the OPEC + collective production quota by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) for May. But at this point it is a purely theoretical plan. Russia could also reach its own quotas and would not have customers buying enough of its oil. Nigeria and Angola see more than 90% of their oil stolen before it hits the market. In this situation, only a very few countries, Arabia in the lead, can capitalize on the profits from high prices to the maximum.
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The article Russia cuts the price of oil, Arabia increases it comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-russia-taglia-il-prezzo-del-petrolio-larabia-lo-aumenta/ on Wed, 30 Mar 2022 06:00:47 +0000.