Asia Buys More U.S. Crude As Middle East Hikes Oil Prices

Despite a slowdown in fuel demand due to the Delta variant, Asian refiners have booked more crude oil from the United States for the fourth quarter, taking advantage of the lower U.S. benchmark prices than last month, traders told Bloomberg on Friday. Refiners in Asia seek cheaper crude, especially after Saudi Aramco raised last week its official selling prices for crude oil loading for Asia in September to the highest premiums to benchmarks since February 2020. Since other major Middle Eastern producers follow the trends in Saudi pricing,…