asia Snapping Up U.S. Crude Oil In Near Record Amounts<p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.5; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Asia has scheduled near-record volumes of U.S. crude oil to be shipped next month, according to trade sources who spoke to Reuters.</p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.5; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Between 1.5 million and 1.9 million bpd of U.S. crude—most of which is WTI Midland—will make their way to Asia in August, just shy of the 2.2 million bpd record loadings of Asia-bound crude oil that the U.S. saw in April.</p> <p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.5; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> WTI continues to be an attractive grade for Asia’s refiners, who see it as a bargain compared to the Middle East benchmark Dubai. The spread between the two grades stood at $5.40 per barrel as of Thursday. That’s down from $6.08 per barrel in June, but higher than the $3.93 Asian refiners saved in May.</p>