Russian ESPO oil premiums hold firm in China despite US tariff threat
Trump on Monday shortened a deadline for Moscow to make progress toward a Ukraine peace deal or face secondary tariffs of 100% in 10 to 12 days.
This set the deadline for Russia at August 7 to August 9, while ESPO cargoes loading in September are being traded.
Traders said Russian oil trade continued as usual.
ESPO Blend's premium to international benchmark ICE Brent was at $2-2.20 per barrel for cargoes loading at end-August and early September as increased refining margins boosted Chinese buying interest, they added.
They said independent refiners in the eastern Shandong province have slightly increased their crude processing rates as margins have improved. State oil majors also operated at higher rates this month.
The traders, who could not be identified because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said ESPO is considered the most economical crude for Chinese refiners as Middle East crude prices have strengthened.
Unipec, the trading arm of Chinese state-run Sinopec (600028.SS), opens new tab, bought 7-8 cargoes of August-loading ESPO, trade sources said last week, which they said was an increase without giving numbers for previous months.
Sinopec did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment.
Shandong Yulong Petrochemical has also made a rare purchase of Russia's Urals crude, traders said last week.
A decline in exports of Russian Sokol crude produced at Sakhalin Island in August due to maintenance at the oilfield has also supported ESPO prices, traders said. Most Sokol crude is exported to China with the rest going to India, data from analytics firm Kpler showed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
23 minutes ago
- Reuters
Trump says Brazil's Lula can call him anytime
WASHINGTON/BRASILIA, Aug 1 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva can call him anytime to discuss tariffs and other friction between the countries. "He can talk to me anytime he wants," Trump said of Lula, speaking to reporters at the White House. He added he was fond of the Brazilian people but "the people running Brazil did the wrong thing." Later, speaking with reporters in Brasilia, Brazil Finance Minister Fernando Haddad called Trump's remarks "great," saying he is sure Lula feels the same, and would be willing to receive a call from the U.S. president. In a post on his X account, Lula said Brazil has always been open to dialogue, although he did not mention Trump nor his earlier remarks. Trump slapped a 50% tariff on Brazil, with many exemptions, starting next week to fight what he has called a "witch hunt" against former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial on charges of plotting a coup following his election loss in 2022. The U.S. also announced sanctions on a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who has been overseeing Bolsonaro's trial. Lula has rejected both the sanctions and the tariffs, calling them "unjustifiable" and an "unacceptable" interference in Brazil's justice system. Haddad said his planned virtual meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent next week will pave the way for an eventual meeting between Lula and Trump, but noted such a move would require preparation. Earlier this week, Haddad said Brazil needed assurance Lula would not face the same treatment as Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who came under fire from Trump and Vice President JD Vance during a heated exchange at the White House earlier this year.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Why Donald Trump's tariffs take aim at Asia and your iPhones
When he began his trade war, President Donald Trump said his goal was to bring American jobs and manufacturing back to the US, reduce trade deficits and create a more level playing field for American companies competing globally. But after months of negotiations and many countries' refusal to meet America's demands, his strategy has taken a more punitive companies have been here before. Under Trump's first administration, when he imposed tariffs on Chinese exports, they scrambled to limit their exposure to Beijing, with many shifting production to Vietnam, Thailand and India to avoid higher levies. But his battery of new tariffs does not spare any of these economies. Stocks saw a sell-off, with benchmark indexes in Taiwan and South Korea in the red on Friday. Both countries are central to Asia's sprawling electronics production. The details are still hazy, but US firms from Apple to Nvidia will likely be paying more for their supply chains - they source critical components from several Asian countries and assemble devices in the they are on the hook - for iPhones, chips, batteries, and scores of other tiny components that power modern lives. It's not good news for Asian economies that have grown and become richer because of exports and foreign investment - from Japanese cars to South Korean electronics to Taiwanese chips. Soaring demand for all these goods fuelled trade surpluses with Washington over the years - and has driven President Trump's charge that Asian manufacturing has been taking American jobs away. In May, Trump told Apple CEO Tim Cook: "We put up with all the plants you built in China for years... we are not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves." Apple earns roughly half its revenue by selling iPhones that are manufactured in China, Vietnam and India. The tech giant reported bumper earnings for the three months to June, hours before Trump's tariff announcement on Thursday night, but now the future looks more executive Tim Cook told analysts on a conference call that tariffs had already cost Apple $800m (£600m) in the previous quarter, and may add $1.1bn in costs to the next quarter. Tech companies typically plan years ahead, but Trump's unpredictable tariff policy has paralysed businesses. Amazon's online marketplace, for instance, is just as dependent on China for what it sells in the US. But it's not yet clear what rates Chinese imports into the US could face because Beijing has yet to strike a deal with Washington - it has until 12 August to do so. Before they agreed to de-escalate, the two sides imposed tit-for-tat tariffs that reached a staggering 145% on some goods. But it's no longer just about China. On Thursday, Mr Cook said that most iPhones sold in the US now come from India. But Trump has just levelled a 25% tariff on Indian imports, after Delhi was unable to clinch a deal in time. Other firms chose to re-route their goods bound for the US through Vietnam and Thailand after the tariffs in Trump's first term. It became so common that it was called the "China+1" strategy. But this time, these trans-shipped goods are also being targeted. In fact, trans-shipping has been a big part of the US negotiations with Asian countries. Vietnamese imports face a 20% US levy but trans-shipped goods face 40%, according to Trump. It's harder still for advanced manufacturing like semiconductors - more than half of the world's chips, and most of its advanced ones, come from Taiwan. It is now subject to a 20% tariff. Chips are the backbone of Taiwan's economy, but also central to US efforts to gain a technological lead over China. So it is another US company, Nvidia, that will pay steep levies to put advanced chips by Taiwan's TSMC inside its AI products. But perhaps the biggest casualty of Trump's tariffs could well be Asia's e-commerce giants - as well as the American companies that rely on Chinese sellers and marketplaces. In a surprise move this week, Trump ditched the "de minimis" rule which exempted parcels under $800 from customs duties. He first did this in May, targeting such parcels from China and Hong Kong - and this was a blow for retailers like Shein and Temu, whose huge success has come from online sales in the West. Now American sites like eBay and Etsy have also lost that exemption - and the price of second-hand, vintage and handmade items for US customers will go up. President Trump says he is batting for Americans with these tariffs, but in a deeply globalised world, US firms and customers could also become casualties. There is still so much uncertainty that it is hard to see who the winners really are.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Deal or no deal? World leaders walk tightrope in tariff negotiations with Trump
It was grip-and-grin time for Ursula von der Leyen as she sat across from Donald Trump in Scotland last week, with the two announcing a deal for 15% tariffs on European imports that would avert a transatlantic trade war – but came at a stiff price for the 27-country bloc. After committing to a unilateral US raise on tariffs that came on the heels of a Nato commitment to increase defense spending to 5% of national GDPs, von der Leyen then thanked Trump 'for his personal commitment and his leadership to achieve this breakthrough'. 'He is a tough negotiator, but he is also a dealmaker,' she said, as the US president beamed. The EU was one of just a number of parties to strike a deal with Trump before his temporary pause on new tariffs came to an end this week. And like many others, the guiding principle for the EU appeared to be: it can always get worse. 'This is clearly the best deal we could get under very difficult circumstances,' Maroš Šefčovič, the EU trade chief, said. Others had a far bleaker interpretation of the dynamics, as Trump has wielded the threat of sky-high tariffs to cudgel his trading partners into submission. 'It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, brought together to affirm their common values and to defend their common interests, resigns itself to submission,' wrote the French prime minister, François Bayrou. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán put it another way: 'It was Donald Trump eating Ursula von der Leyen for breakfast,' he said on his podcast. Later, he called her a 'featherweight'. World leaders have been forced to adopt a position of appeasement and pragmatism as they've approached the Trump administration, which has swung between imposing staggering tariffs on imports and then announcing last minute pauses and exclusions that suggest there is little rhyme or reason to the White House's tariff strategy. But the key factor for Trump appears to be taking whatever he can get. Countries across Asia exporting to the US were quickest to begin negotiating new trade deals with the White House. Vietnam was desperate to cut a 46% tariff imposed on the country, and Trump early last month announced that he had negotiated a 20% rate with Vietnamese negotiators. Except, it turned out, they believed that they had negotiated an 11% rate, Politico reported. And treasury secretary Scott Bessent this week admitted that he had never seen the deal, which the Vietnamese authorities have never confirmed. Trump reportedly used the trade threats along with other incentives in order to broker a recent peace between Thailand and Cambodia after fighting broke out along the border between the two countries. He soon announced a 19% rate – a significant cut from 49% for Cambodia and 36% for Thailand – which appeared more motivated by international politics than trade considerations. But while many countries in the region will breathe a sigh of relief as they avert sky-high tariffs, some see a new danger in the arbitrary redrawing of the US's trade relationship with the world. 'What we felt during this negotiation is that the US trade environment is fundamentally changing,' South Korean trade minister Yeo Han-koo said shortly after a deal was made to tariff imports at 15%, down from a threatened 25%. The two sides had made a verbally agreement but had not made a formal draft, he said, because the deal had to be struck so quickly. 'I think we are entering a new normal era,' he said. 'So, although we have overcome this crisis, we cannot be relieved, because we do not know when we will face pressure from tariffs or non-tariff measures again.' Leaders who have stood up to Trump are having the hardest time. Among others, Trump has focused his ire on Canada, which he has blamed for the fentanyl crisis in the US, a charge that Canada's prime minister Mark Carney has rejected. Trump on Friday announced that he would raise tariffs on Canada, a top trading partner, to 35%, as tough negotiations between the two sides continued. Carney, who had coined the elections slogan 'Elbows up, Canada' as a signal of defiance against Trump's tariff and annexation threats, said he was 'disappointed'. 'While we will continue to negotiate with the United States on our trading relationship, the Canadian government is laser focused on what we can control: building Canada strong,' Carney said.
