Weekly Bitumen Report: Last Week of 2022 and the Various Signals of the Market

On the 302nd day of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy travelled across America. This was his first abroad trip after the start of the war. It is still soon to talk about the outcomes of this visit on the war, but generally, analysts do not expect the war to finish earlier than the second half of 2023.

At the same time, the wide outbreak of Corona in China after reducing the new restrictions shocked the heads of the countries, and WHO expressed its concerns about a new wave of COVID. It seems that the market will not show a positive reaction to this incident if China cannot control the trend of the new outbreak of the virus.

In the meantime, brent crude oil did not exceed 84 USD within the last week, which can be the outcome of an increase in interest rates in Europe. Although it is heard that most probably America will not increase the interest rate in 2023, the upward direction of interest rates in Europe is not clear yet.

Bitumen price was also under pressure because of a lack of increase in oil prices so that India is expecting another fall in bitumen price at the beginning of the New Year and after the previous fall of USD 20 in the second half of December 2022.
Singapore’s bitumen price did not exceed 495 USD either and South Korea’s bitumen was traded in the range of 365 USD.
For the second consecutive week, Bahrain announced its bitumen price by around 375 USD.

In Iran and by the increase of USD value against Iran Rial, the severe competition over vacuum bottom happened by the refineries, and around 70K MT of bulk bitumen was traded within the last 10 days and as it was mentioned in the last week report of Infinity Galaxy, Iran bitumen is being offered with much better prices comparing to Iraqi bitumen.

It is also heard that the new vacuum bottom price is expected to decrease by around 5 USD in Iran. Still, the bitumen movement in Iran is not clear and by the commencement of export season in the markets like Afghanistan and Pakistan, heavier competition by the refineries is expected and it is possible to observe a bitumen price increase in Iran unless some other factors prevent it to happen.

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