The resurgence of COVID in China could not have happened at a worse time for Middle Eastern producers. Saudi Arabia brought back all its 1 mbpd voluntary production cut and already started ramping up production along the lines of the latest OPEC+ deal that would largely see it adding 100kbpd every forthcoming month in 2021. In a similar fashion, the Emirati ADNOC has started to roll back its self-imposed supply cuts from 15% to an eventual zero. Thus, sizeable volumes of incremental supply will be coming back next month, just as peak summer demand season ends in Europe and North America, implying that lukewarm Asian demand does not bode well with short-term market fundamentals. With this being said, below we will take a look at the pricing strategies of Middle Eastern NOCs to get a feeling of what is to be expected further. Graph 1. Saudi Aramco OSPs for […]