Soaring WTI draws in North Sea grades

摘要

North Sea crudes are increasingly moving transatlantic as their discount to benchmark WTI and falling US inventories have prised the arbitrage wide open.WTI has averaged around 2.50/bl above North Sea Dated so far this month,and averaged nearly 3.50/bl higher in October.This has helped light North Sea marker grade Forties find a market in the US.Sustained buying by majors has pushed it to more than 50c/bl above Atlantic basin benchmark North Sea Dated from around parity.BP has chartered two very large crude carriers(VLCCs)to sail from the North Sea to the US Gulf coast in mid-November at the same time that it is loading four conventional 80,000t cargoes of Forties.