RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has slashed the September price for its Arab Light crude oil for Asian customers by $1.30 a barrel, setting it at a discount of $1.10 to the Oman/Dubai average, the state oil company said on Sunday. Saudi Arabia’s move to lower the official selling price (OSP) is likley to intensify competition with rivals such as Russia and the United Arab Emirates, who produce similar oil grades and are also looking for a bigger share of the market in Asia, the world’s top oil consuming region.
Iraq overtook Saudi Arabia for the first time to be India’s top oil supplier in the June quarter, helped by sales of discounted heavy crude that refiners have also been using to make bitumen to build roads in the world’s No.3 oil consumer. OPEC’s top producer has lost ground in a number of major global markets including to Russia in China, and is also facing a further threat from Iran, which is ramping up exports after Western sanctions were removed.
State oil giant Saudi Aramco raised its September OSP for Arab Light to north-west Europe by $0.25 a barrel from August to a discount of $4.25 a barrel to the Brent Weighted Average (BWAVE). The Arab Light OSP to the United States was down $0.20 at plus $0.25 a barrel to the Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI), it said in a statement.
Saudi Aramco’s chief executive said this month the company was not worried about competition from other producers raising their crude sales in Asia as the number of customers the state oil giant deals with is also increasing. Saudi crude OSPs set the trend for Iranian, Kuwaiti and Iraqi prices, affecting more than 12 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude bound for Asia. The tables below show the full FOB prices for April in US dollars. Saudi term crude supplies to the United States are priced as a differential to the Argus Sour Crude Index (ASCI).
