Baku, Azerbaijan, April 24
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
The diversification policy of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR is an instrument of real support of commodity prices, expert Gleb Gorodyankin said.
He was speaking at the 3rd SOCAR International Caspian and Central Asia Downstream Forum on Trading, Logistics, Refining and Petrochemicals in Baku April 24.
He said that since January 2016, there has been an increase in the premiums for Azeri Light crude oil in relation to Brent Crude oil.
“At the same time, the demand for Urals oil fell in the European markets, and Russia cut the supply in the Western countries,” he noted. “The demand for oil from Iran, Iraq and the US increased in the Baltic countries. In January-April, oil supplies from the US to Europe increased almost fourfold from 1.8 million tons to 6.7 million tons, while the share of the European market in the structure of US exports increased from seven to 12 percent.”
The expert added that the European market of oil products is in a difficult situation, because gasoline arbitrage to the US is almost closed.
“We observe more stable situation regarding diesel fuel, the supply of distillates from Russia and Kazakhstan may increase by the end of 2018,” he said. “Against this backdrop, the arbitrage of oil varieties to Asia becomes particularly important, because in the medium term this will bring stability to the Caspian oil varieties. Own capacities, which allow companies to allocate raw materials for processing and give the opportunity to build their own logistics chain, also gain importance.”