Weekly Bitumen Report: The Hope for a Promising Market after a Long Recession

On the 253rd day of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Russia shot more than 50 missiles throughout Ukraine, including Kyiv aimed to destroy its infrastructure. Also, Putin suspended the export of grain from Ukraine.

On the other hand, it seems that after the appointment of Xi Jinping as China’s president and Rishi Sunak’s appointment as the prime minister of UK, the parliament election of the USA on 8 November can be the third significant political event in the world. If the Republicans win the election, then the Democrats will have a complicated situation in the next presidential election.

On 1 November and after the implementation of OPEC’s decision about the cut of 2 million barrels in production, oil price and fuel prices accordingly increased in the Middle East after the announcement of the security threats. As a result, Singapore and Persian Gulf fuel increased by around 24 USD within 2 days.

On 1 November, India increased bitumen price about 30 USD and Singapore and South Korea bulk bitumen price faced an increase of 5 USD and reached 565 and 485 USD respectively.

In Iran and during one week, the Iranian refineries competed for vacuum bottom by about 60% which was an unprecedented record within the last 10 months.

It is heard that at least 13 bulk vessels were in the loading queue during the last 10 days which is a sign of good demand for bulk bitumen after several months of recession in the market.

With the decrease of shipping costs to the lowest level in the last year, the stability of Brent prices in the channel of 90 USD, and the continuation of the current situation, maybe it can be stated that an improvement in the export market can be expected after a long recession in the market.

This article was prepared by Razieh Gilani, the export manager of Infinity Galaxy (www.infinitygalaxy.org).