Friday, April 17, 2020/04:48 PM / by Tsvetana Paraskova of
Oilprice.com / Header Image Credit: Oilprice
The discounts of spot cargoes of Canada's
Cold Lake blend, Alaska North Slope, and Brazil's Lula grades vary between $5
and $9 a barrel to Brent, traders in Asia told Bloomberg on
Friday.
China's refiners are said to be pretty much the only buyers of spot
crude right now, as both state-owned corporations and independent
refiners-commonly known as 'teapots' - are taking advantage of the cheapest oil
in years to stock up on crude worth $15 a barrel or less.
Independent refiners bought spot cargoes
of Cold Lake from a European trader at a discount of
$8-$9 a barrel to Brent, while Alaska North Slope and Brazilian grades have
been sold at a $5.50-$6 per barrel discount to the international benchmark
price.
Refiners in China kept their processing rates low in March, because of
the slump in local demand due to the pandemic and the lockdowns. Still, signs
point to some recovery after the end of the lockdown in China, at least in
demand for ultra-cheap crude for April and May.
Refinery runs in China hit their lowest in
15 months in March, according to data from China's statistics bureau on Friday,
compiled by Reuters.
China-based analysts told Reuters that toward the end of March, refiners
started to recover some of the utilization rates at refineries with fuel demand
rising from earlier this year when China was the hotspot of the pandemic.
In March, China's crude oil imports rose by 4.5
percent on the year, but dropped compared to January-February.
However, independent refiners began ramping up bookings for crude arrivals in
March and April as early as at the end of February.
Import in April and May are expected to rise from the March levels as demand is slowly returning, and refiners are looking to buy ultra-cheap oil, Li Yan, senior analyst at Longzhong Information Group, told Reuters.
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