Weekly Bitumen Report: Empowerment of Price Increasing Factors
During the last week, drone and missile attacks of Russia and Ukraine were escalated against each other. In the meantime, North Korea simulated the atomic attack to South Korea by firing 2 missiles. In Africa, the coup plotters of Gabon appointed a new leader for their country. Yet, it is not clear how these political tensions might affect the world economic situation.
At the same time, based on the reports of 8 informed sources, Reuters mentioned that politicians of European Central Bank are considerably worried about the weakening of economic growth perspective. However, although negotiations about this matter go on, the movements to stop the increase of interest rate continue too.
Based on the reports, in August, the employment situation in Germany was worse than what was expected, and it dropped again for the fourth consecutive month. This has caused concerns about the second economic recession within the last year.
In the meantime, in the latest prediction of the American company of ExxonMobil, it was announced that the world will supply more than half of its energy needs from oil and gas till 2050, and at the same time, on Wednesday, Hardeep Singh Puri, the minister of petroleum and natural gas of India told ET Now TV channel: India will purchase crude oil from any exporters who supply it with the lowest price. India is the third biggest importer and consumer of crude oil in the world with an import rate of over 80%.
During the past week, according to Reuters, the release of industrial data about significant withdrawals from American oil reserves, as the world’s largest fuel consumer, also, the negative impact of the Gulf of Mexico storm on investors caused oil prices to rise this week. Another factor contributing to the increase in oil prices can be attributed to the decline in the value of the US dollar due to a contraction in predictions regarding the increase in bank interest rates after the release of data related to unfavorable job conditions in that country.
After continuous fluctuations, Singapore’s HSFO CST180 remained at the level of 535 USD in the last week.
Bulk bitumen prices of Singapore and South Korea were traded at 470 and 425 USD, respectively.
Bahrain bitumen price is still fixed at the level 440 USD, and in Europe, bitumen price subsided in the range of 500-580 USD.
Bitumen price in India increased around 14 USD for 1 September, and an overall increase of 63 USD was observed within the last 40 days.
In Iran, prices were almost stable with a reduction in the level of competition at 37% as a result of customer pressures to reduce the prices. The factors like shortage of containers have affected the export process too. Although Iran bitumen prices are lower than the global competitors, the pressures from buyers’ side, especially Indian ones, have raised to reduce the prices. However, it is expected to find a clearer direction of the prices with respect to some new internal components.
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This article was prepared by Razieh Gilani, the export manager of Infinity Galaxy (www.infinitygalaxy.org).
