By Ella Cao and Naveen Thukral
BEIJING/SINGAPORE, Sept 10 (Reuters) - China ‌bought 14 to 15 cargoes ‌of U.S. soybeans this week, or around 1 million metric tons, four traders told Reuters, as the world's top oilseed buyer steps up purchases ‌ahead of ⁠Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington later this month.
The ⁠purchases take China's total U.S. soybean buying to nearly half of the 25 million tons the White House ‌said Beijing had committed to annually through 2028.
Chinese state stockpiler Sinograin booked the cargoes for shipment from U.S. Gulf terminals between December and February, ‌traders said.
Sinograin did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

#cargoes #tons #purchases #ella

Chinese refiners are paying a hefty premium for Russia's ESPO crude to replace Iranian crude that independent refiners were importing before the U.S. installed its naval blockade on the country.
East Siberia-Pacific Ocean crude, or ESPO, for delivery in November is trading at a premium of over $7 per barrel, with offers reaching as high as $10 per barrel over Brent crude, Bloomberg reported today, citing traders. The blend is loaded from Russia's Far East coast and can reach the buyers in China in less than a week, the publication noted.
China is the biggest buyer of ESPO crude, with a market share of 83% for the first seven months of the year. However, this share is down from 88% a year earlier. The change came amid stronger ESPO buying from Indian refiners, whose market share for the Far Eastern Russian crude blend went up from 12% to 16% for the first seven months of the year, according to data from Kpler and Vortexa. Total oil exports from Russia's Far Eastern port of Kozmino ticked up by 6% over the first seven months of the year.
India raised its ESPO imports due to the slump in overall Chinese oil imports between May and June, and the supply disruptions in the Middle East, which delayed many term cargoes Indian refiners were expecting in the early summer.
Normally, Indian refiners prefer the Urals blend but have now warmed up to ESPO even though it takes longer to reach its destinations in India and is costlier than Urals. However, the Far Eastern blend is a good backup option for Indian buyers in times of disruption, according to energy ***** ysts.

#year

India raised its purchases of Russia's Far East crude blend ESPO in the first seven months of the year as China backed out of the spot market in the first months of the Iran war and deliveries to India from the Middle East slumped with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Total exports of the ESPO grade from Russia's Far Eastern port of Kozmino rose by 6% in January-July from a year earlier, Russian daily Kommersant reported on Wednesday, citing a report by Argus.
China remained the key buyer of ESPO crude, but its share of the shipments from Kozmino fell to 83% from 88%. At the same time, India's share of the ESPO exports increased to 16% to 12% in the first seven months of 2026, per data from Vortexa and Kpler cited in the report.
India raised its ESPO imports due to the slump in Chinese oil imports between May and June, and the supply disruptions in the Middle East, which delayed many term cargoes Indian refiners were expecting in the early summer.
The rise in Indian ESPO imports are due to logistics reasons and the Chinese pullback between April and June, according to Dmitry Prokofiev, director of external communications at NEFT Research.

#imports

EuroDry (EDRY) has surged nearly 350% over the past year, driven by strong technical momentum and robust ***** yst sentiment.
Shares set an all-time high at the end of August 2026.
EDRY maintains a 100% "Buy" technical opinion from Barchart.
Analysts rate EDRY as "Strong Buy," but Morningstar flags it as 18% overvalued, highlighting the need for disciplined risk management.
Valued at $141 million, EuroDry (EDRY) is an owner and operator of drybulk vessels and a provider of seaborne transportation for drybulk cargoes. It operates 11 dry bulk carriers across the Ultramax, Kamsarmax, Panamax, and Supramax classes.

#edry #strong #barchart

By Ahmad Ghaddar, Enes Tunagur and Robert Harvey
LONDON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - For the first time on record, Iran has gone about seven weeks without shipping meaningful crude exports through the Strait of Hormuz, as a U.S. naval blockade succeeds where years of sanctions ‌failed by cutting off one of Tehran's main sources of foreign-currency earnings.
Unlike previous sanctions campaigns, when Iranian crude continued reaching buyers despite restrictions, ‌the current blockade has stopped fresh crude cargoes reaching China, Tehran's only major remaining oil customer, increasing pressure on government finances and foreign-currency reserves.
Since the U.S. reinstated its blockade on Iran on July 14 as part of their six-month conflict, no Iranian crude cargoes have successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz to China, according to Kpler, Vortexa and TankerTrackers.com.
As a result, Iran can only sell crude to China from floating storage in Asia, which it cannot replenish as crude accumulates aboard tankers inside the strait.

#crude #Iran #strait #sanctions

Europe is heading for the winter with one of the lowest levels of gas in storage in the past two decades as the war in the Middle East crippled LNG supply from Qatar, sent gas and LNG prices in Europe and Asia skyrocketing, and intensified competition for the shrunk pool of readily available global LNG cargoes.
A perfect storm of elevated demand for filling depleted storage and electricity during the summer heatwaves, and slashed global LNG supply with Qatar's cargoes trapped behind the Strait of Hormuz have pushed European benchmark prices to multi-month highs and LNG prices to the highest in three years.
The high prices, with front-month futures higher than those further out in time, have discouraged stockpiling for most of the summer. But Europe doesn't have a choice and needs to fight for gas to fill storage sites to reasonably adequate levels before December to avoid a winter supply crunch.
That's easier said than done. Competition from Asia is fierce for LNG supply that doesn't need to move through the Strait of Hormuz, and Europe is currently losing this race.
One potentially mitigating factor is that Europe now consumes about 10-15% less natural gas than it did in 2021 due to a higher share of renewables for electricity generation and industries adapting from an abundance of gas (including from Russia) to tight markets with elevated prices.

#Europe #storage #asia #hormuz

Venture Global, Inc. (NYSE:VG) shares are drawing heightened attention following the release of its second-quarter 2026 financial results. The company delivered substantial growth across key operational and financial metrics, prompting management to raise its full-year 2026 Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA guidance to $8.7 billion–$9.1 billion (up from $8.2 billion–$8.5 billion). Driven by accelerating production from its Plaquemines LNG facility, Venture Global exported 127 cargoes and sold 466.4 TBtu during the quarter, a 42% surge in volume year-over-year.
For Q2 2026, Venture Global, Inc. (NYSE:VG) reported total revenue of $4.6 billion, up 48% from $3.10 billion in Q2 2025. Operating income soared 111% year-over-year to $2.2 billion, while net income attributable to common stockholders surged 266% to $1.3 billion ($0.51 diluted EPS vs. $0.14 a year ago). Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA reached $2.5 billion, marking a 79% jump compared to $1.39 billion in the prior-year period. Stronger implied liquefaction fees under commissioning sales agreements and tight cost controls allowed operating margins to expand to 47.8%. Additionally, the board declared a $0.04 per share cash dividend for Q3.
On August 12, Wells Fargo raised its price target on Venture Global, Inc. (NYSE:VG) to $15 from $14 while maintaining an Equal Weight rating. The firm noted Q2 was essentially in line with expectations, highlighting the company's raised 2026 guidance above consensus on higher market spreads. Wells cited higher underlying EBITDA estimates and a significant increase in Venture Global's dividend per share as key supporting drivers.
This brings up a core question: Does the guidance hike and operational expansion signal a lasting multi-year earnings transformation, or are investors exposed to project execution and leverage risks?
Proponents point to Venture Global, Inc. (NYSE:VG)'s strong profitability, expanding scale, and long-term contracted position. Rapid volume growth, evidenced by passing its 1,000th total exported cargo, proves operational capability, while 91% contracted cargo coverage for 2026 offers high cash flow visibility. Furthermore, management's recent refinancing efforts extend maturities and lower debt-service costs, offering a stable financial foundation to fund project build-outs like CP2 and maintain shareholder returns.

#billion #global #ebitda

By Marwa Rashad and Nora Buli
LONDON/OSLO, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Six months into the U.S.-Iran war, ‌Qatar is among the conflict's biggest economic casualties, ‌with its liquefied natural gas exports slashed by 96%, data shows.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq and Kuwait have seen their oil exports hit, but by nowhere near as much.
Qatar has lost $24 billion in gas sales, which is ‌about five months' ⁠worth of income for the country based on 2025 data, Reuters calculations show.
While neighbouring ⁠Gulf exporters have managed to sneak oil secretly out of the Strait of Hormuz, Qatar has exported just 18 LNG cargoes, down from 509 in the same period ‌last year, according to data intelligence firm ICIS. Two Qatari tankers have been attacked.

#data

By Nidhi Verma and Florence Tan
Aug 24 (Reuters) - Iran said it had blacklisted 45 tankers that had broken its rules for crossing the Strait of Hormuz, and would take action against any vessels ‌transferring loads with them, escalating its threats over the key waterway six months into the war.
The named ‌vessels could be fined, detained and have their cargoes confiscated, according to an X post late on Sunday from the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a new body set up by Iran to manage the strait.
The warning was issued within days of the U.S. threatening Iran with "the toughest sanctions in history", and Iran saying its response to any new U.S. threats would be "devastating".
The restricted list includes very large crude carriers, liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas tankers, and clean product vessels, among others.

#vessels #reuters

MOSCOW, Aug 24 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday that measures were being taken ‌to minimise the impact of Ukrainian strikes ‌on Russia's grain exports as global wheat importers brace for tighter supplies amid attacks on Black Sea grain infrastructure.
Tit-for-tat attacks by Russia and Ukraine, both major grain exporters, on ports and vessels in recent weeks ‌have shuttered grain ⁠terminals and forced shippers to delay or cancel loadings for dozens of cargoes ⁠during the peak export season.
"Measures have been identified and will be further developed, ensuring that all grain intended for export is shipped on time and in ‌full," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
President Vladimir Putin acknowledged last week that Russia was experiencing problems with its agricultural exports, but said it would resolve them. The Kremlin chief also pledged ‌that there would be no shortages on global markets.
Russia would have about 60 million tons of grain for ‌export in the current season, Putin estimated. Russian grain exports are expected to pick up to 2.2 million metric tons in August from 1.95 million ‌in July, the Sovecon consultancy said.

#kremlin #Russia

On August 13, Golar LNG (NASDAQ:GLNG) used its second-quarter earnings call to announce a fourth floating LNG unit, an order signed just hours before the call began. The Mark II vessel will be built at CIMC Raffles Shipyard in China and delivered within 2029, making it the earliest available liquefaction capacity anywhere in the world. Combined with an EBITDA backlog of $17 billion already locked in through Hilli, Gimi, and the FLNG Esperanza, the announcement reframes Golar as a company still adding capacity rather than one just running out its existing fleet.
The new order lifts Golar's controlled liquefaction capacity by 41%, from 8.6 million tonnes to more than 12 million tonnes once fully delivered. Management said that if the unit is chartered on terms similar to last year's Esperanza deal, annual earnings capacity could rise 50%, pushing run-rate EBITDA past $1.2 billion by 2030. That confidence rests on a shipyard bottleneck.
Samsung, the industry's biggest builder, isn't expected to have open capacity until 2031, and Wison in China is on track to book its next two large units, leaving it committed well into the next decade. Seatrium and CIMC, the only two yards actively converting FLNG units right now, have built exclusively for Golar. The operating record backs up the growth pitch. Hilli finished its eight-year Cameroon contract with 100% economic uptime and 156 cargoes delivered, Gimi produced 15% above its contracted volume in the quarter, and the Esperanza conversion is 74% complete and still on budget. Commodity-linked income is already showing up in the numbers: Hilli's contribution jumped to $37 million in the quarter from $10 million in the first quarter, helping push EBITDA up 20% sequentially to $127 million.
Growth at this pace isn't free. The CapEx budget for the fourth FLNG unit came in around $2.45 billion, roughly 10% above the $2.2 billion spent on Esperanza, a jump management tied to inflation in long-lead equipment like turbines and dual-fuel engines, parts now being bid up by AI data center and aircraft manufacturers too. That new unit also has no charter yet, so the 50% earnings boost management is pointing to is a target, not a locked-in number.
Meanwhile, Golar is still equity funding Esperanza, having put in $1.3 billion of its $2.2 billion budget, while carrying net interest-bearing debt of about $1.8 billion. Executives are counting on refinancing Hilli and locking in long-term financing for Esperanza to free up roughly $2.3 billion in liquidity, transactions that are still in progress rather than done. The commodity exposure that flatters earnings when LNG prices are high works the same way in reverse. Management's own sensitivity table shows EBITDA falling back toward $1.2 billion if prices settle near $8 per million BTU, well below the $1.9 billion implied by today's $15 forward price. And the disruption at Qatar's Ras Laffan facility, which knocked out an estimated 17 million tonnes of capacity for three

By Siyi Liu and Chen Aizhu
SINGAPORE, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Offers of Iranian crude to Chinese buyers have declined and prices have jumped this week as the U.S. blockade has cut Tehran's shipments, according to trade sources, with the threat of more sanctions from Washington looming.
The U.S. re-imposed its blockade of Iran's shipping ‌and ports on July 13 as a deal to halt the war between them broke down in an attempt to cut off oil sales — Tehran's primary source ‌of hard currency — compounding earlier losses from wartime strikes on its energy infrastructure.
The number of offers for Iranian oil cargoes to China for September and October delivery has declined from July and August cargoes, four trade sources familiar with the matter said. The offers have declined as barrels already in ships on the water have been sold, they said.
Iran's oil exports have fallen since mid-July, with no visible crossings of the Strait of Hormuz by supertankers carrying Iranian crude since then, according to data from ship-tracking company Kpler, although many vessels turn off their location transponders, making them difficult to track.

#iranian #blockade #according #trade

On August 11, Venture Global (NYSE:VG) reported its Q2 2026 earnings. While the text implies an established corporate history, Venture Global completed its IPO in January 2025, making this only its second Q2 report as a publicly traded company. The company posted its largest quarterly EBITDA ever, raised its full-year guidance for the second time this year, and lifted its dividend by triple digits. But the stock still carries one of the most lopsided sentiment profiles on the market, and that gap between the fundamentals and the trading floor is the real story here.
The headline number was $2.5 billion in consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2026, a 79% jump from the $1.4 billion posted in the same quarter of 2025. Revenue followed the same trajectory, climbing 48% year over year to $4.6 billion, with $1.3 billion of that increase coming from higher sales volumes and the rest from better pricing. Venture Global shipped 466 TBtu of LNG in the quarter, up from 329 TBtu a year earlier, and net income attributable to common stockholders came in at $1.3 billion, up 266% from $368 million.
That kind of operating leverage let management raise 2026 EBITDA guidance to a range of $8.7 billion to $9.1 billion, up from the $8.2 billion to $8.5 billion range given back in May. The company also exported its 1,000th cargo, just four years after its first shipment in March 2022, while keeping 91% of its 2026 volumes contracted, up from 84% at the start of the year. On the balance sheet side, Venture Global refinanced $5.3 billion of debt and preferred equity during the quarter, part of more than $103 billion raised or refinanced since the company's founding, a move management says will cut annual interest and coupon costs by more than $100 million. The board followed that up by raising the quarterly dividend 122% to $0.04 per share.
Not everything in the release points in one direction. Management kept its EBITDA guidance range wider than usual, citing LNG price volatility tied to events in the Middle East, and said it would only narrow that range after the third quarter. The current guidance ****** umes a liquefaction fee of $12.50 to $13.50 per MMBtu for uncontracted 2026 cargoes, and every $1 swing in that fee moves EBITDA by $180 million to $210 million, a reminder of how exposed results still are to global gas prices.
Much of the company's future growth also sits years out. A final investment decision on the 10 MTPA CP2 expansion isn't expected until early 2027, with first production not until late 2028, while the Plaquemines expansion is targeting an FID in the first half of 2027 and Phase 1 output only starting in 2029. Of the roughly 85 MTPA of run-rate production expected once all three projects and their bolt-ons are online, only about 53 MTPA is currently committed under long- and medium-term contracts, leaving 32 MTPA still to be marketed. And despite the dividend increase, the payout remains modest at $0.04 per share, even as t

Gulf oil producers are finding new ways around the Strait of Hormuz, but bypassing the world's biggest oil chokepoint creates new risks.
VLCC Rates Go Ballistic as Hormuz Turns Into a Freight Jackpot
- VLCC prices are ballooning out of control (once again), pushing ***** sed earnings for a Middle East-to-China voyage beyond $500,000 per day as the flow of vessels moving out of the Gulf trickled down to a mere couple per day.
- Amidst news that Saudi Aramco resumed crude loadings at its key Ras Tanura export terminal, VLCC fixing costs for inside-Hormuz cargoes jumped to a whopping $31 million per voyage, as seen this week with the Mongolia Prosperity supertanker.
- Saudi Aramco loaded at least three VLCCs (Malaysia Prosperity, Algeria Prosperity and Singapore Prosperity) in the Gulf last week, all owned by Sinokor, offering them to Asian buyers via ship-to-ship transfers off Fujairah in the UAE on a prompt basis.

#prosperity #ship

Santos narrowed its full-year production guidance after its Barossa LNG project and Alaska's Pikka oil development advanced through commissioning, with the company expecting a significant increase in production and free cash flow during the second half of 2026.
The Australian energy producer said Barossa is now operating at 97% of planned production rates, with LNG cargoes currently being loaded about every eight days. Meanwhile, Pikka's initial production wells are delivering approximately 23,000 barrels per day, with plateau output of around 80,000 bpd (gross) targeted in the third quarter and first sales expected in August.
Second-quarter production rose 3% from the previous quarter to 23.1 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), bringing first-half output to 45.6 mmboe. Santos now expects second-half production to be approximately 20% to 30% higher than the first half and narrowed its full-year production guidance to 99-105 mmboe.
Second-quarter sales revenue increased 6% quarter-on-quarter to $1.35 billion. First-half free cash flow from operations reached about $378 million but was weighed down by one-off commissioning costs at Barossa and Pikka, the timing of LNG cargo receipts, and temporary under-lift positions in Papua New Guinea. The company said these factors are expected to reverse during the second half, supporting stronger cash generation.
Santos also expects higher LNG prices to boost earnings after realizing $11.21 per mmBtu during the quarter. Because most of its LNG contracts are linked to the ******* an Crude ******* tail (JCC) benchmark with a three-month pricing lag, the rise in JCC prices above $100 per barrel during the second quarter is expected to lift realized LNG prices in the third quarter.

#half #cash

Chinese refiners largely stopped competing for Middle Eastern crude during the Iran conflict, leaving more Gulf cargoes available to Europe, India, and the rest of Asia just as traders prepared for a supply shock.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates China drew 41 million barrels from crude inventories during June, one of the largest monthly stock draws on record. Refiners met domestic demand from storage instead of replacing those barrels through imports, allowing Beijing to ride out the sharp jump in Middle Eastern crude prices caused by the conflict.
That inventory was accumulated well before the conflict. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates China spent much of 2025 buying roughly 900,000 barrels per day for strategic and commercial storage whenever prices softened.
Independent "teapot" refiners cut operating rates as weak refining margins, slowing fuel demand and higher crude prices squeezed profitability. Reuters reported that several refiners shifted purchases toward discounted Gulf grades and delayed Iranian cargoes, leaving millions of barrels floating offshore without immediate buyers.
Kpler estimated in late May that Chinese seaborne crude imports had fallen to 6.78 million barrels per day, the lowest level in nearly a decade, down from 8.5 million bpd in April and well below the 2025 average of 10.66 million bpd. Refinery intake, however, declined far less sharply, indicating that refiners were meeting the difference by drawing inventories.

Dangote's 700,000 b/d Lekki refinery has been running at full capacity over the past two months, pushing product exports to Europe to record levels and overtaking traditional suppliers from the Gulf and the US. Its rise has already reshaped the West African fuel trade: imports of clean products from outside the region fell by almost 25% year-on-year in the second quarter. Yet Dangote is treating this only as a starting point. The group plans to add another crude distillation unit (CDU), lift total capacity to 1.45 million b/d and build a wider network of product-storage and distribution infrastructure across Africa. The ambition is vast, but so are the challenges.
The refinery's latest maintenance and upgrade programme lifted capacity from 650,000 b/d to 700,000 b/d by de-bottlenecking the existing crude distillation unit. That increase took roughly 2.5 years to deliver, with regular crude purchases beginning in March 2024. The next phase is larger. Dangote is targeting mechanical completion of a new 750,000 b/d CDU and additional secondary units by December 2028, potentially including another vacuum distillation unit as well as expanded polypropylene, base-oil and linear alkyl benzene capacity. If completed, the project would make Lekki the world's largest refinery at 1.45 million b/d, narrowly ahead of Reliance Industries' 1.4 million b/d Jamnagar complex in India. However, the construction of Dangote's first CDU took eight years, roughly in line with the pace of other recent refinery projects. India's newly commissioned Barmer refinery in Rajasthan, for example, also took around eight years to build, despite being far smaller at 180,000 b/d. That makes Dangote's target of completing a second CDU by 2028 look highly unrealistic.
Yet the timeline may be less important than the signal. While state-owned NNPC is still trying to rehabilitate its three refineries, with a combined capacity of 445,000 b/d, by attracting outside investors, Dangote's promise to build the world's largest refinery sends a clear message to both NNPC and potential investors: the competition is likely to become too difficult to withstand, regardless of when the second CDU is ultimately completed.
Related: IMF Downgrades Global Economic Growth Forecast To 3% Amid Iran War
The refinery has largely relied on Nigerian crude, but domestic supply has not been sufficient to cover its full needs. Crude receipts peaked near 650,000 b/d in May before easing to 575,000 b/d in June. Nigeria's very own Bonny Light has remained central, while WTI Midland from the US Gulf Coast provided an average of 120,000 b/d in 2025 and as much as 300,000 b/d in some months. The very light slate supported high jet and diesel yields but left too little residue to fully feed the refinery's residual fluid catalytic cracker, constraining gasoline output. Dangote has therefore widened its slate to include somewhat heavier Nigerian grades such as Escravos, Forcados and Bonga, alongside occasional cargoes

Soybeans are trading with Tuesday morning gains of 1 to 2 cents. Futures posted gains of 35 to 50 ½ cents across the front months on Monday, with defereds up 23 to 32 cents. New buying interest was noted, with open interest rising 45,619 contracts. There were 26 deliveries issued against July futures overnight. The cmdtyView national average Cash Bean price was up 47 1/4 cents at $11.36 3/4. Soymeal futures were $5.10 to $9.10 higher across most contracts, with Soy Oil futures 99 to 141 points higher. There were no deliveries against July soybean meal futures overnight, with against July bean oil. Rumors of China buying surfaced late in the day, with a reported 5 cargoes (300,000 MT) purchased.
Crop Progress data from NASS showed 34% of the US soybean crop blooming by 7/5, up 6% from normal, with 9% setting pods and 3 percentage points faster than normal. Condition ratings were down 1% at 64% gd/ex, with the Brugler500 index steady at 365.
Coffee Prices Surge on Brazil Weather Risks
Coffee Prices Surge as Brazil's Harvest is Delayed
Heavy West African Rains Push Cocoa Prices Sharply Higher

Previously, we reported that Abu Dhabi's flagship crude, Murban crude, has rapidly risen to prominence, with Murban crude futures having rapidly evolved from a regional benchmark into a primary global pricing standard. Known for its high API gravity and low sulfur content, Murban serves as a globally recognized energy benchmark traded on the ICE Futures Abu Dhabi (IFAD) exchange. By offering continuous screen-trading, deep liquidity and the removal of destination restrictions, Murban has bypassed older, restricted benchmarks like Platts Dubai, introducing unprecedented transparency and price discovery to Middle Eastern crude.
However, the Middle East conflict has upended oil market dynamics, giving Asian refiners a distinctive advantage.
The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) is now transitioning the Official Selling Prices (OSPs) for its three offshore crude grades--Upper Zakum, Das, and Umm Lulu--from a differential against Murban futures to a differential against the Dubai benchmark. This change will apply to prompt cargoes loading two months ahead, while the flagship Murban crude remains tied to Murban futures.
ADNOC's decision to price its offshore crude grades against the Dubai benchmark instead of Murban corrects a structural economic distortion that has penalized buyers for years. Murban is a premium, light-sweet crude grade, whereas the offshore grades—Upper Zakum, Das, and Umm Lulu—are medium-sour barrels, yielding completely different product slates.
During the height of the U.S.-Iran conflict, extreme market backwardation and sudden premium demand for light ends caused front-month Murban futures on the IFAD exchange to surge. Because Upper Zakum and Das were priced as a differential pegged directly to Murban, these medium-sour barrels became artificially and prohibitively expensive for Asian refiners, completely detached from their actual physical market fundamentals. By shifting the offshore grades to a Dubai-linked formula—the undisputed global baseline for medium-sour crude—ADNOC is realigning these crudes with their true physical peers, such as Oman and Qatar's Al-Shaheen.

Crude oil prices are in freefall after the United States and Iran agreed on a ceasefire, set to last 60 days. Traders expect the ceasefire to unleash an avalanche of crude, and indeed, tankers are leaving the Persian Gulf in growing numbers. And yet Iran just struck a commercial ship in Hormuz.
Bloomberg reported earlier this week that the ceasefire prompted huge discounts in available crude cargoes, noting how Angolan crude was selling at a $10 discount to dated Brent—for the first time in a decade. Not only this, but Chinese refiners were offering crude oil cargoes for sale, the publication wrote, citing unnamed traders.
"You actually get a discount to buy a barrel now versus a barrel tomorrow because of the weakness in the Asian pull on Middle Eastern grades," Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg. "Reopening is going well and quickly."
This appears to be the general feeling in trading and ***** yst circles. Indeed, ***** ysts were somewhat baffled by the speed with which oil prices dropped amid the reports of more tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz loaded.
"The market has rebalanced through a meaningfully different mix of demand losses and inventory withdrawals than we initially ***** umed," JP Morgan commodity ***** ysts said, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

By Florence Tan and Siyi Liu
SINGAPORE, June 26 (Reuters) - Saudi Aramco resumed crude loadings on Friday at its Ras Tanura terminal in the Gulf after a near four-month halt, shipping data showed, as the world's biggest oil exporter joined a rush to move cargoes amid ‌industry hopes of a return to normal.
The Saudi oil loadings come even though a ship belonging to Taiwan's Evergreen Marine was hit by ‌an unknown object in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday.
Middle Eastern producers had been ramping up oil and gas output and exports in the lead-up to the interim deal between the United States and Iran to halt the war and reopen the strait where a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supplies used to pass.
Two Very Large Crude Carriers controlled by Saudi's shipping arm Bahri were seen loading crude at Ras Tanura, the world's biggest oil port, while another waited nearby, the data showed. Each VLCC is capable of loading 2 million barrels of oil.