Sweet crudes seek outlet

摘要

The US Gulf coast struggled to absorb an overhang of sweet west African grades arriving in the second half of June,and sellers were forced to cut their asking prices despite WTI's narrowing premium to BFO.Cargoes arriving in July may be able to command stronger differentials thanks to the narrowing Atlantic arbitrage,but these volumes have not been widely offered yet.North Sea grades were all but absent from the Gulf coast market.The build up of available crude in the US and high freight rates saw fob prices slide on most July-loading west African grades.The premium of light sweet Nigerian Bonny Light to the benchmark fell by nearly 200/bl over the week to 580/bl.Around 6mn bl of extra June-loading Nigerian crude that was released late in the trading month continues to weigh on the market.Sentiment on all medium sweet grades has softened on slow Chinese buying.