Weekly Bitumen Report: Bitumen Price Surge Despite Worries on Crude Oil Fall

On July 21, Joe Biden dropped out of the US presidential election and 2 days later, Kamala Harris was officially appointed as the candidate of Democrats. It was previously announced by AXIOS news agency that Biden would drop out of this election during the weekend. This led to a weak improvement in commodity markets. However, at the same time, worries about low economic growth of China led to the fall of crude oil prices up to 81 USD.

In the meantime, Israel’s air strike to Hudaydah Port of Yemen and more complications in the Middle East did not allow fundamental pressures to lead to more fall of crude oil price in spite of concerns about the economic situation of China.
Simultaneously, Netanyahu’s speech in America congress was objected by his opponents and many of the members did not even attend his speech.

According to Reuters, the market sources declared that based on the report of America Oil Institute, the reserves of crude oil, petrol, and middle distillate products reduced in America for the fourth consecutive week which is a sign of demand stability for the biggest oil consumer of the world.
The fire in Canada forests also led to the increase of oil price and according to the analysts of ING institute, this fire forced some of the producers to reduce their production and there is a serious threat on a large volume of demands.

These analysts also noted that the market is approaching to the range of additional sales, but they still believe that the fundamental factors of the market tend to the raise in the prices for the third quarter of 2024 due to shortage of supply.
Besides, the market sources also reported that as per America Oil Institute, the oil reserves of this country decreased to around 3 million and 900 barrels in the week ending to 19 July.

At the same time, it seems that Indian refining companies such as Indian Oil and Reliance Industries could get the required permissions from America to import Venezuela heavy crude oil once again. In this way, India can import heavy crude oil from a non-Asian country in addition to Russia.
On July 24, Singapore’s CST180 reached 491 USD.
Bitumen price in Singapore and South Korea settled at 474 and 385 respectively.
The range of bitumen prices in Europe was 470-530 USD, and Bahrain is still holding the price level of 450 USD.

Despite monsoon season, bitumen price in India increased 2 times and it is expected to increase around 10 USD on August, 1. It appears that India bitumen market is approaching more promising days after several months of recession.
In Iran, it seems that bitumen market starts its upward trend as a result of 2.5% surge in the base price of vacuum bottom, significant growth of the Middle East fuel, and rise of domestic costs. Compared to the previous weeks, bitumen price of Iran increased at least 15 USD.

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This article was prepared by Razieh Gilani, the export manager of Infinity Galaxy.