Weekly Bitumen Report: The Continuity of Oil Price and Bitumen Price Increase in the Global Markets

During the last week, the Ukrainian generals claimed that they could break the front line of residence in south of Russia and they could recapture 4 gas platforms in the Black Sea.
There were some new tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia about Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.


It is not yet clear what can be the economic outcomes of these two events. However, some of the analysts described the tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia to be dangerous.


In a new report by Energy Information Administration of America, it was predicted that USA oil production through Shale will reach its lowest level since May 2023 for the third frequent month.


In the meantime, in World Petroleum Congress in Calgary of Canada, the President and CEO of the Saudi Aramco stated that the estimations of International Energy Agency about the severe reduction in oil demand within the next years were unreal and global oil consumption will not reduce rapidly.


At the same time, Kelvin Wong, the senior market analyst of OANDA in Singapore, declared that oil prices increased as a result of worries about shortage of supply and technical factors.


In the meanwhile, industrial production and retail grew in China more quickly than what was expected during August that shows the second power of world economy is getting stable after some month of facing recession. Besides, the obtained data show that oil refining rate in China increased up to 64.69 million ton during August which shows a surge of 19.6% comparing to the last year.


The onset of oil uptrend led the global central banks to face ambiguities while they were trying to control inflation rates after the outbreak of COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine war. While the central banks of Europe and United States follow to reach inflation rate of 2% with frequent surge, the increase of costs of production due to a raise in oil price and transportation charges, cause troubles in the previous restrictive monetary policies by the emergence of new wave of inflation.


In the last week, crude oil increased up to 96 USD and it returned to the level of 93 USD after a slight modification to decide for its future trends during the next days about its increase of decrease.
On August 21, Singapore’s HSFO CST180 reached 519 USD and its bitumen price settled at 530 USD.

Bitumen price in south Korea decreased to 425 USD and Bahrain bitumen price remained unchanged at 440 USD for another week.
In the Europe region, bitumen price stopped at the level of 550 – 600 USD.
A significant increase in India can be expected on 1 October after 5.5 USD fall on the second half of September.


After the changes in pricing formula in Iran, it is anticipated to see a surge of around 10 USD for the base price of vacuum bottom within the next 3 days. Although bitumen price increased notably in Iran, its bitumen prices are still attractive for the other markets. However, the buyers must be careful about the prices which are out of the range of market based on the above-mentioned facts.


You can contact the experts of Infinity Galaxy to get competitive prices with highly qualified services.


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