Weekly Bitumen Report: The Attractions of Iran Prime Bitumen Prices with the Current Crude Oil Level

Despite the implementation of price cap on Russia’s oil, crude oil price reached its lowest level in 2022. Some of the market analysts believe that such fall in prices can be attributed to selling Russia’s oil to VIP customers in a range of 40-50 USD. However, the outcomes of Xi Jinping’s travel to Saudi Arabia and their negotiations are not clear yet. Yet, it seems that the ending days of year will be more promising after the reduction of COVID restrictions in China.

In the meantime, the current fluctuation of the market which was due to the sudden fall of crude oil price was a big shock for the markets of oil products so that Singapore’s fuel price decreased 13 USD on 12 December and increased up to 21 USD on 13-14 December.

Bitumen price in India decreased around 20 USD that can be because of fall in crude oil price and lack of enough budget allocated by the government to the contractors. This is a rare fall in bitumen price of India in the middle of December.

During the last week, after a fall up to 30 USD, Singapore bitumen price increased 10 USD and stabilized in the level of 500 USD. Bahrain prices decreased 50 USD and its bulk bitumen price was 375 USD.

After some growth in bitumen prices, Europe market stopped again and bitumen price in South Korea was 365 USD.

In Iran, although vacuum bottom price dropped by around 13% and USD equity against Iran Rial increased unprecedentedly, the refineries competed for vacuum bottom up to an average of 44%. However, this is the first time that Iran bitumen price got cheaper than Iraq cargo within the last year but it should be taken into consideration that the offers are not out of normal range of the market as the consequent losses of providing lower offers can be lack of supply or off-quality cargoes.  

Such fragile situation of Iran market which is a result of fall in crude oil price and fluctuation of USD against Iran Rial can change at any time and the market gets recovered again. However, it seems that bitumen price in Iran is still attractive to the buyers considering the current crude oil prices.  However, the various scenarios of crude oil prices should not be neglected.

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