An Overview of the Bitumen Market in 2020

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

Finally the unpredictable 2020 came to an end and Infinity Galaxy wishes a very happy New Year, hoping for a better world in 2021.In the first article of the New Year, it is worth to have an overview of what occurred in the bitumen market. Maybe, it can be said that 2020 was the only year in which we observed a wide range of price changes in bulk and drum packings. In this article, New Steel Drum packing will be considered as the criterion of market changes. The year started with a range of 260-280$/MT, FOB Bandar Abbas and the lowest price was observed in May, 165-180$/MT drum. As the hope of a normal life increased by the news about discovery of COVID-19 vaccine, increase of oil price and devaluation of USD against Rial, the gradual increase of bitumen price in Iran started and the buyers could no longer find the rates less than 210-220$/MT of new steel drum packing. The whole year was full of ups and downs and unpredictable fluctuations, the December 2020 was the peak of these oscillations and increase of VB price and the frequent competitions between the refineries figured out the prices of 305-315$/MT FOB Bandar Abbas.

The liquidity injections by the governments led to the a significant growth of the micro economies and oil products while the cut-down of the productions due to overall lockdowns can make an imbalance between demand and supply and hence it can be expected to see higher rates of bitumen in 2021 comparing to 2020.

During the last week, rates in Iran market increased after any competition among the refineries and the range varied from 310$ -335$ and it might even increase more. Meanwhile, foreign buyer are the big fans of Iraqi bitumen and certainly it cannot be compared with the pure bitumen of Iran in terms of quality and in a short term, the contractors of road construction projects will face qualitative problems and claims by these low offer of the market which in fact do not belong to Iran market.