SINGAPORE, Nov 28 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is expected to lower its January crude price for Asian buyers for a second month to its lowest level for five years, tracking the decline in spot benchmark prices, sources said on Friday.
The January official selling price for flagship Arab Light crude will likely decline by 30-40 cents a barrel to a premium between 60 cents and 70 cents to the average of Oman/Dubai quotes, five Asia-based refining sources said in a Reuters survey.
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That would mark a second monthly decline and the lowest since January 2021, Reuters data showed.
The January OSPs for other crude grades – Arab Extra Light, Arab Medium and Arab Heavy – could fall by 30-50 cents a barrel from December, the sources said.
The forecasts mirrored a downward trend in cash Dubai’s premium to swaps, which have averaged 90 cents per barrel so far this month, down 32 cents from October. .
OPEC+ has raised output targets by around 2.9 million barrels per day from April to December.
There were also unexpected additional supplies this month from Kuwait Petroleum Corp which offered some 3.9 million barrels of heavy crude to the spot market after an outage at its Al-Zour refinery due to a fire.
Saudi crude OSPs are usually released around the fifth of each month, and set the trend for Iranian, Kuwaiti and Iraqi prices, affecting about 9 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude bound for Asia.
State oil giant Saudi Aramco sets its crude prices based on recommendations from customers and after calculating the change in the value of its oil over the past month, based on yields and product prices.
Saudi Aramco officials as a matter of policy do not comment on the kingdom’s monthly OSPs.
Below are expected Saudi prices for January (in $/bbl against the Oman/Dubai average):
Source: Reuters, trade
Reporting by Siyi Liu in Singapore; Editing by Florence Tan and Alexander Smith
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