The premium is the highest ever in Saudi pricing, although it is below the $40 per barrel premium over Oman\/Dubai that some refiners and traders had expected in a survey by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia typically announces around the fifth of each month its crude pricing for the following month and doesn\u2019t comment on price changes.<\/p>\n The pricing announcement follows the monthly OPEC+ gatherings at which the producers, led by Saudi Arabia, decide how to maintain market stability.<\/p>\n In the current worst disruption in the history of oil markets, OPEC+ on Sunday agreed to boost<\/a> oil production by another 206,000 barrels per day (bpd), which will be theoretical only as production in the Middle East remains constrained by the Strait of Hormuz crisis.<\/p>\n Days before it was slated to announce pricing for May-loading cargoes for Asia, the world\u2019s top crude exporter, Saudi Arabia, was under pressure<\/a> from its buyers to switch to alternative pricing, as the war is upending oil flows and roiling regional benchmarks. \u00a0<\/p>\n Asian refiners have already priced some orders for U.S. crude oil against the\u00a0ICE Brent benchmark<\/a>\u00a0instead of the typical pricing on Dubai crude, as the Middle Eastern benchmark has seen wild fluctuations amid choked physical supply from the Persian Gulf.\u00a0<\/p>\n Saudi Arabia is seeking to redirect as many barrels as possible to the Yanbu port on the Red Sea<\/a>. This export route doesn\u2019t need passage through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran is now selectively and politically ensuring safe passage through the chokepoint for some vessels.<\/p>\n By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com<\/p>\n More Top Reads From Oilprice.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia has hiked the price of its flagship Arab Light crude loading for Asia in May to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[66114,180063,84,180062,59,12625,581,180064,12552,5386,163474,179031,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-515883","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-aramco","9":"tag-asia-refiners","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-crude-premium","12":"tag-gb","13":"tag-oil-markets","14":"tag-oil-prices","15":"tag-oman-dubai-benchmark","16":"tag-opec","17":"tag-saudi-arabia","18":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","19":"tag-supply-disruption","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom","22":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/book.jpg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n