August 2022 will see many grades reach their highest-ever market differential. Gulf producers balance tight supply and signals of demand destruction as they set prices for August. The arrival of Russian Urals into India and China have saturated the Asian crude market even further. In hindsight, June 2022 might go down as the last month when the markets at large were still yet to go into full panic, acknowledging economic recession as a necessity but not yet succumbing to a spiral of fear and agitation. The pricing of August-loading grades coming from the Middle East still reflects that feeling when China was still expected to finally come back from its lockdown-induced demand slump when the global shortage of supply still kept market fundamentals extremely tight. As we will see below, August 2022 will see many grades reach their highest-ever market differential. It is more than likely that even in […]