Weekly Bitumen Report: Rapid Growth of Bitumen Price in Europe vs. Slow Growth in Asia

At the fourth month of tensions in the Middle East, Israel launched deadly air raids on Lebanon to retaliate the death of one Israeli solider.

In the meantime, Russia-Ukraine war entered its third year and there is still no clear future for it.

During the last week and by the start of new year holiday in China, the markets in East Asia had a quite stable situation. Meanwhile, according to the latest report of China’s customs, Russia surpassed Saudi Arabia in 2023 and turned into the biggest oil supplier of China. Iran also reduced its crude oil export to China.

On Wednesday, 14 February, the price of WTI decreased by the release of news about the unprecedented rise of U.S crude oil inventories.

According to the reports, crude oil storage increased to 8.52 million barrels by the week ending on 9 February which is much higher than the estimation of 2.6 million barrels reported by Reuters.

Suvro Sarkar, the senior vice president of energy sector in DBS Bank, states that America’s higher-than-expected capacity to store the oil has caused the increase in prices to stop.

On February 14, Singapore’s 180 CST remained unchanged at 452 USD and bulk bitumen of Singapore was stable at 435 USD.

Bitumen price in South Korea had some increases to settle at 410 USD, and Bahrain’s bitumen price closed at 360 USD for another week.

Europe is experiencing serious rises in the prices with the range of 418-433 USD.

In India, bitumen price increased around 9.5 USD on February 15.

During the last week, bitumen prices continued its slow uptrend in Iran in spit of the relative stability in the currency market, a decrease in the dollar against Rial, and insignificant VB competition among the refineries.

Infinity Galaxy team is available to assist market players with its highly qualified services.

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