Weekly Bitumen Report: The Upward Trend of Price under the Effect of Global Market Improvements

The last week earthquake in northwest of Iran and then in Turkey and Syria led to the death of more than 15,000 that is expected to increase further. At the same time, it caused the closure of several ports in Turkey and had a significant impact on energy trends and increase of oil prices.

At the same time, in addition to the technical factors, the predictions for the major offensive of Russia to Ukraine in the first war anniversary, the improvement of pandemic situation in China and increase of energy demand in China were expecting the increase of Brent crude oil to the range of around 90 USD in short term, and on 9 February, it increased up to 85 USD.

The downward trend of Singapore’s HSFO CST180 that continued till 6 February, faced a jump of around 25 USD on 7 & 8 February. Singapore and South Korea both observed a 5-dollar increase in bitumen price to record the prices of 515 and 435 USD, respectively.

After the fall of 14.5 USD on 1^st February in bitumen prices of India, it is heard that the increase of prices in the mid of February is predicted

For the third consecutive week, Bahrain’s bitumen was traded at 325 USD and it seems that its upward trend starts after several months.

On 4 February, the base price of vacuum bottom in Iran increased 5.3% and the refineries competed over 73% for the vacuum bottom.

The wave of cold season in Iran, local transportation issues, and the significant surge of steel sheet prices created a big gap between bulk and packed bitumen price once again.

The improvement of prices in the markets were observed by the start of some projects in North Africa and positive signals in East Asia.

As it was mentioned in the last week report of Infinity Galaxy, it seems that February can see a dynamic market after some months of recession and the exporters will experience a better market.

At the end, Infinity Galaxy team wishes all the survivors of the devastating earthquakes of Iran, Turkey, and Syria peace and improvement of their living situation.

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