Saudi Aramco raises most Asia, US-bound April OSPs, cuts Europe OSPs

Singapore — Saudi Aramco raised its official selling prices for its light and medium crude oil grades bound for Asia and the US, while cutting prices across all crude grades bound for Europe, the company said in a notice on March 8.

For Asia bound crude, the April differentials against Oman/Dubai for its Super Light, Extra Light, Light and Medium grades were raised by 20-60 cents/b, while the differential for its Heavy grade was kept unchanged from its March OSP at 30 cents/b.

Specifically, the Asia-bound Arab Extra Light April OSP saw the highest increase of 60 cents/b to $1.20/b against Oman/Dubai, matching the grade's OSP back in August 2020, which was the highest since March 2020, S&P Global Platts data showed.

Similarly, for US bound crude, differentials for its Extra Light, Light and Medium grades were raised by 10-30 cents/b, while the differential for its Heavy grade was kept unchanged from its March OSP.

The OSPs for Northwest Europe were cut across all grades from March by $1.50-$1.80/b, while all of Saudi's crude grades bound for the Mediterranean had their OSPs cut by $1-$1.90/b, pricing against ICE Brent.

Post the OPEC+ meet last week, Saudi Arabia once again surprised the market by pledging to extend its voluntary cut of 1 million b/d for April, with the rest of the alliance largely in agreement to maintain the oil cuts prompted by lingering uncertainty over economic recovery, uneven vaccine rollouts and stringent lockdown measures.

Oil prices could continue to rise further after news of a drone attack on a petroleum tank farm at Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura port by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from Yemen.

However, Saudi Aramco confirmed there was minimal damage from the attack, which follows in close succession to another attack on March 4 with the rebel group claiming to have targeted oil facilities in Jeddah.