Weekly Bitumen Report: The Uptrend of Iran is Going on

During the last week, oil price increased around 4.35% by the release of news about the partial improvements in China’s economy and the stop of export of Kurdistan’s oil in Iraq, it reached around 78 USD but it did not exceed 79 USD and there is still a strong resistance for more increase of oil price.

This resistance that mainly happened as a result of bankruptcy of several American banks and the merge of 2 banks of Switzerland led to more fears in the market and these concerns did not allow the oil price to go beyond 80 USD for the time being.

Following the cold war between USA and China, on Wednesday night, the government of Brazil announced that they have made an agreement with China to eliminate US dollar from their mutual businesses and continue their cooperation based on the national currencies of the two countries, the annual turnover of China and Brazil was over 150 billion dollars in 2022.

On the same day, Saudi Arabia’s cabinet accepted to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and this was the first step of cooperation with this organization. In spite of America’s worries, Saudi Arabia is looking for long-term and tight relations with China.

Due to market confusions, 4 USD fall in Singapore’s fuel and 20 USD increase in its prices were observed during 27-30 March that was a sign of market instabilities.

At the same time, Singapore’s and South Korea’s bulk bitumen were traded at 490 and 430 USD respectively but Bahrain increased its bitumen price 30 USD and it reached 355 USD.

Despite the turmoil in the market, it is heard that bitumen price in India is expected to increase around 20 USD on 1 April due to the shortages of current stocks.

In Iran, vacuum bottom increased around 21% and there were 5 announcements in the Persian new year and the average competition was around 52% which seems a high rate and it can be a sign of producers’ decisions to continue with the upward trend of prices. In the meantime, it seems that US dollar value is getting stronger against Iran Rial in the beginning of the Persian New Year.

Considering the wide range of effective events in the market, Infinity Galaxy still advises the buyers and sellers to take wise steps with a deep insight about market trends.

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