Sweet crude moves to Europe

摘要

Extra crude being released from US strategic stocks is affecting the value of west African grades, which depend heav- ily on US demand. More light, medium and heavy sweet west African crude is heading to Europe instead. This has under- mined grades such as Caspian BTC Blend, but not by enough to close the arbitrage (see upper graph). Around 1.15mn bl of jet fuel has been provisionally booked to move from the Mideast Gulf and the west coast of India to northwest Europe. Jet fuel cargoes in northwest Europe have risen to $92/t premiums to benchmark Ice gasoil futures from $88/t a month ago. This has boosted the European market's premium to Mideast Gulf prices to $7/bl (see lower graph).