US petroleum becomes popular with Asians

Asia will import a large amount of crude oil from the United States (US) in August.

Between 1.5 and 1.9 million barrels per day of the US petroleum, most of which is WTI Midland oil grade, will be sent to Asia in August, which is close to the record of 2.2 million barrels per day of Asian petroleum imports from the US in April.

WTI remains an attractive oil grade for Asian refineries who see it cheaper than Dubai’s petroleum, which is the Middle East’s benchmark. The difference between these two oil grades reached 5 dollars and 40 cents per barrel last month, which was less than 6 dollars and 8 cents in June but higher than 3 dollars and 93 cents in May.

The flood of crude oil imports from the US is flowing to Asia, following the increase in the official selling price of Saudi Arabia’s petroleum in the last two months.

In recent months, China has received less petroleum from Saudi Arabia and used petroleum from other regions to fill the supply gap, a Singaporean trader told Reuters. Consulting company “Energy Aspects” expects petroleum imports from the US to Asia to increase in the third quarter of this year. We expect US exports to Asia to grow in the third quarter of 2023 compared to the second quarter, with China and even Japan buying Midland petroleum shipments, the company told Reuters.

The US petroleum inventories fell by about 700,000 barrels last month, partly due to higher petroleum exports.

According to the report of Oil Price, the news on the increase in the purchase of the US petroleum by Asia was published while it was heard earlier that the US Senate approved an amendment to the annual defense bill that will ban the export of crude oil to China from the strategic petroleum reserves. This amendment has been widely supported by both ruling parties of the Us.