SAUDI ARABIA has cut oil prices for buyers in Asia as Covid lockdowns in China weigh on demand, countering uncertainty around Russia's supplies as the Ukraine war continues.
Saudi Aramco is lowering prices for the first time in four months. The state-controlled company dropped its key Arab Light crude grade for next month's shipments to Asia to US$4.40 a barrel above the benchmark it uses, from $9.35 in May. That's in line with a Bloomberg survey of refiners and traders from late April that forecast a $5 decrease.
Aramco also lowered all grades for the north west Europe region and almost all for the Mediterranean. Prices for US customers were kept unchanged from May.
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, raised its prices to record levels in the past two months after crude futures surged above $100 a barrel when Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian flows have already fallen and may drop further as the European Union moves closer to formally sanctioning energy supplies from the country.
While the war has tightened the global oil market, Beijing's Covid Zero strategy has led to China's largest demand shock since the early days of the pandemic. Consumption of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel last month was expected to slide 20 per cent from a year earlier, reports Bloomberg.
SeaNews Turkey
Saudi Aramco is lowering prices for the first time in four months. The state-controlled company dropped its key Arab Light crude grade for next month's shipments to Asia to US$4.40 a barrel above the benchmark it uses, from $9.35 in May. That's in line with a Bloomberg survey of refiners and traders from late April that forecast a $5 decrease.
Aramco also lowered all grades for the north west Europe region and almost all for the Mediterranean. Prices for US customers were kept unchanged from May.
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, raised its prices to record levels in the past two months after crude futures surged above $100 a barrel when Russia invaded Ukraine. Russian flows have already fallen and may drop further as the European Union moves closer to formally sanctioning energy supplies from the country.
While the war has tightened the global oil market, Beijing's Covid Zero strategy has led to China's largest demand shock since the early days of the pandemic. Consumption of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel last month was expected to slide 20 per cent from a year earlier, reports Bloomberg.
SeaNews Turkey
