Asian buyers eye Wti Houston as benchmark

摘要

Asia-Pacifc oil frms increasingly expect WTI Houston to become a global bench- mark as pipeline links to the Gulf coast improve and exports rise. Refiners in Asia-Pacifc are looking at alternatives to Mideast Gulf and Afri- can supplies such as US Gulf coast exports, Unipec president Chen Bo said at the Argus Americas Crude Summit in Houston. US crudes are likely to displace Africa as the second-largest supplier of crude to Asia-Pacifc by 2020, only surpassed by the Mideast Gulf, Chen says. The US exported 220,000 b/d of crude to China last year, up from 20,000 b/d in 2016, US Census Bureau data show. China is now the second-biggest importer of US crude behind Canada (see table). Overall Asia- Pacifc imports from the US rose to a high of 650,000 b/d in October.