Middle East

　Saudi Arabia's state-owned Saudi Aramco would inform its term buyers early next week of the new May-loading OSP formulas but market players were divided over forecasts of the OSP. Saudi Arabia has raised production from April, but the market was watching whether Saudi Arabia would again curb production and the trends would affect the Saudi Arabia's OSPs. US President Trump said after the teleconference with Saudi Arabia's Crown Price Mohammad that Saudi and Russia would agree with production cuts by a combined of 10 to 15 mil bbl per day (b/d) for both of the countries. In addition, Saudi Arabia requested OPEC and non-OPEC producers to hold an urgent meeting. Following the move, market sources eyed whether producers would clinch a new deal for joint production curbs or how Saudi Arabia would set the new OSPs.

Africa/Europe/Russia/America

　In the trade of US grades, Chinese end-users were said to have secured several US cargoes like Mars and WTI for June arrival. The cargoes were likely to be eventually placed to Chinese independent refiners. Norway's Equinor was believed to be one of the sellers. The US grades dived amid the spreading outbreak of COVID-19 as reported. Chinese end-users bought the cargoes as the prices were sensed as attractive. In China, the COVID-19 outbreak apparently peaked out, and crack margins in China recovered as reported. Indeed, according to a survey conducted by Rim, operating rates of refineries in China's Shandong province were 54.6% as of Apr 1, up by 15.4% from a month earlier. China International United Petroleum & Chemicals Co (UNIPEC) bought massive volumes of May-loading West African cargoes like Angolan grades and Russian Urals as reported.

Asia Pacific

　In the trade of May-loading Vietnamese grades, the country's state-run PV Oil sold Bunga Orkid in its tender closed on Mar 25. PV Oil sold one cargo for 9-15 loading to European Vitol at a discount of $3-4 to DTD Brent. The price underperformed by more than $10 the previous Bunga Orkid tender for April loading by PV Oil. In the trade of Bunga Kekwa with a similar quality as Bunga Orkid, Malaysia's state-owned Petronas sold one 300,000bbl cargo at a discount of around $5 to DTD Brent in its tender closed on Mar 30 as reported.