Weekly Bitumen Report: End of 2022 with 2 Contradictory Scenarios in China

The last week of 2022 passed while Russia’s war against Ukraine started more than 310 days ago and it is heard that more severe attacks to Kherson will happen. This war led to hyperinflation in the world and recession in many of the regions. The approximate damages were estimated more than 500 billion dollars.

In the meantime, 2 different pieces of news about China were published yesterday: the increase of COVID cases which will lead to the fall of economic growth in China and the reduction of COVID restrictions and death cases in China. On the whole, unlike some analysts’ beliefs that brent crude oil will be closed in the range of 75-80 USD at the end of 2022, it increased up to 84 USD and after the reduction of restrictions in China. As a result, Singapore CST180 reached over 400 USD after 2 months of fall.

In the ending week, bitumen price maintained stable in the world but in Iran as a result of significant value of local currency against USD, the lowest bitumen price of Iran within the last 6 month was recorded so that it was considerably lower than Iraqi bitumen too. But, on the other hand, the increase in production costs such as steel sheet price for drum production, surge of internal transportation costs and all other factors affecting bitumen production will lead to the growth of bitumen price in Iran.

The average competition over vacuum bottom was 65.6% among the Iranian refineries and it grew significantly comparing to the previous weeks.

In India, another fall of bitumen price is expected at the beginning of January 2023 up to 25 USD.

Singapore and South Korea bulk bitumen prices reached by around 500 USD and 380 USD, respectively.

Bahrain bitumen was traded unchanged at 375 USD.

Overall, bitumen price in 2022 grew comparing to 2020 and 2021, but it has not been analyzed yet in terms of production and consumption.

Hoping for a peace and freedom for all the nations, Infinity Galaxy wishes a happy New Year to everyone. It was our team’s pleasure to be with you for one more year with our weekly reports.

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