In a recent move, Saudi Arabia to raise Asia oil prices of its flagship crude grade oil loading for Asia in June comes as a surprise. This comes after the Saudi-led OPEC+ group made sure to continue easing the production cuts by way of adding a more than expected volume to the market in June.
In a sign that the world’s top crude oil exporters anticipate robust demand in Asia in the coming month, Saudi Arabia has lifted the price of the Arab light crude grade for June by $.20 a barrel over the May prices and now charges a premium of $1.40 every barrel over and above Dubai and Oman on average, which is a kind of benchmark that Middle Eastern producers price their crude loading when it comes to Asia.
Apparently, the OPEC+ group, which is led by Saudi Arabia, has agreed to surge the collective output by 411,000 barrels every day, which is almost triple the volume that was originally planned. This kind of move is just after a similar surge that was announced for May this year and thereby signals a very steep reversal from OPEC+’s endeavors to defend its oil prices.
As per the OPEC+ producers who happen to be cutting the output, the present healthy oil market base is the threshold when it comes to their decision to go ahead and boost the production by larger volumes every month than what was previously expected. As a matter of fact, the eight OPEC+ producers, namely Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Oman, and Kazakhstan, are going to be taking production decisions every month, with the next meeting planned for June 1, in order to agree as far as the production levels for July are concerned.
Notably, Saudi Arabia to raise Asia oil prices is a move that’s caught the eye of many as it mostly announces around the fifth of every month its crude pricing for the month to come, and it does not usually comment on the prices that change. It apparently, also goes on to set the tone for pricing to Asia as far as the other oil majors in the Middle East are concerned.
It was in April 2025 that Saudi dropped its prices, especially for Asia in May, which was just ahead of the 410,000 barrels per day increase that was planned for May.
Now the biggest crude exporter in the world has marginally raised its official selling price when it comes to Asia for June for its variant Arab Light. The part of this kind of decision may as well be because of the increasing profits when it comes to refining Middle Eastern crude, which, by the way, Saudis keep track of in order to gauge the demand as well as market conditions, according to Bloomberg.
