Platts Dubai trading activity hits record high in March amid Middle East war

Trading activity during the Platts Dubai Market on Close assessment process hit an all-time high in March, as the war in the Middle East saw the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz for the first time in the 42 years of the benchmark.

A total of 1,920 25,000-barrel Dubai partial contracts were traded on the MOC through March, with 82 cargoes of 500,000 barrels each declared.

This surpassed the previous record-high trading activity in August 2015, when 1,710 partials and 78 convergence cargoes were declared in the MOC, comprising 51 Oman, 24 Upper Zakum and three Dubai cargoes, Platts data showed.

A convergence occurs when 20 partials are traded between two counterparties, resulting in a full 500,000-barrel physical cargo being declared from the seller to the buyer.

One 500,000-barrel cargo of May-loading Upper Zakum crude also traded on the MOC in March, with Vitol buying a cargo from BP at a $6.60/b premium to Platts May Dubai crude assessments, FOB on March 17.

Prices

Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, assessed benchmark May cash Dubai crude at $121.10/b on March 31, the last day of trading for May-loading Middle East crude.

May cash Dubai assessments averaged $128.524/b in March, up from an average of $68.404/b for front-month April cash Dubai in February, Platts data showed.

May cash Oman crude was also assessed at $121.10/b on March 31 and averaged at parity to cash Dubai throughout the month, up from an average of $68.412/b for front-month April cash Oman in February, when it averaged a 0.8 cent/b premium to Dubai.

The Dubai cash-futures spread, a measure of the market structure, strengthened to average plus $37.66/b in March, up $36.74/b from plus 92 cents/b in February.

Partial trades, convergence cargoes

The number of individual 25,000-barrel partials and full 500,000-barrel cargo convergences both hit record highs in March, despite Platts suspending the nomination of crude grades loading inside the Strait of Hormuz on March 2.

This was up from 960 partials and 40 convergences for April-loading cargoes traded in February, and 589 partials and 20 convergences for March-loading cargoes traded in January.

Of the 82 May-loading convergence cargoes declared in March, 44 were of Oman while 38 were of Murban -- the highest number of Murban convergence cargoes in a month on record. This is equivalent to 22 million barrels of Oman and 19 million barrels of Murban.

TotalEnergies was the buyer of 77 of the cargoes, while Mercuria bought four and Equinor one. It is not unprecedented for a single buyer to be the recipient of all convergence cargoes declared in a single month, with Mercuria being the sole buyer of all March 2026-loading cargoes sold in January, prior to the onset of the war.

On the sell side in March, Unipec sold 21 convergence cargoes, followed by Shell with 20 cargoes, Vitol with 14, Phillips 66 with seven cargoes, BP and Trafigura each with five cargoes, Chevron and Gunvor with three cargoes each, PetroChina with two cargoes, and PTT and Sinochem with one cargo each.

At the March 31 close, there were 280 partials traded throughout the month that had not resulted in a convergence and physical delivery. The buyers were Equinor, Mercuria, TotalEnergies, Hengli, Mitsui, Shenghong, Trafigura, ExxonMobil, BP, Gunvor, Phillips 66, Reliance and Chevron, according to MOC data.

Exports and production

Oman's crude oil exports in February stood at 846,836 b/d, or 23.71 million barrels, the latest data from the National Center for Statistics and Information showed March 20.

The country produced 28.7 million barrels of crude oil in February, averaging 1,025 million b/d, NCSI data showed. In comparison, production in January stood at 31.75 million barrels, or 1.024 million b/d.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. forecast exports of its flagship Murban crude at 1.610 million b/d for May, up from its previous forecast of 1.460 million b/d for the month after it deferred its planned maintenance from May to September, the company said in a report on its website March 27.

Murban crude is ADNOC's largest crude by volume, accounting for about 2 million b/d of production capacity, according to data on ADNOC's website.