Asia's oil refiners are ramping up crude purchases from outside the Middle East, the latest sign of a scramble to secure supplies as shipping through the vital Strait of Hormuz remains all-but halted.
After initially balking at sky-high crude prices, Asian fuelmakers have returned to the market to secure cargoes from the US to Africa and the North Sea, with scant signs of a resolution to the war. They are now willing to pay elevated premiums to secure supply, traders familiar with the matter said.
The upheaval in the Middle East has triggered fuel shortages in several parts of the world and even the US, the top oil producer, has seen gasoline and diesel prices surge. Asia -- which depends heavily on crude from producers in the Persian Gulf -- faces the greatest exposure to the disruption.
Refiners in China, South Korea, India and Thailand have snapped up millions of barrels of crude recently, especially for prompt deliveries, the traders said.
Market behavior is also shifting. Trading activity for Middle East crude has slowed markedly, as refiners prioritize securing supply over participating in the spot market.
Major players, including Chinese and Korean fuelmakers, as well as India's giant private refiner Reliance Industries Ltd., are typically active in trading, both buying and selling. But this has changed recently. Whatever cargo Asian refiners can find, they're immediately taking home, not risking losing them in the open market once those go on offer, traders said.
Unipec, the trading arm of China's state-owned oil giant Sinopec Group, bought at least 6 million barrels of West African cargoes in separate deals late last week. South Korean refiner GS Caltex Corp. bought about 4 million barrels of US crude for June arrival. And India's Hindustan Petroleum Corp. issued a tender to buy prompt April-loading supplies.
Elsewhere, a Thai refiner made a rare purchase of roughly 700,000 barrels of North Sea Forties from Trafigura for late-March loading -- the first such purchase by a Thai company since at least 2019, according to data tracked by Bloomberg. Thailand also secured additional supplies from Angola and the US, Energy Minister Auttapol Rerkpiboon said.
Vietnam is also seeking support from Angola for crude oil and gas, as well as asking Japan and South Korea to help secure shipments.
Still, substituting Middle Eastern crude remains challenging. Many Asian refineries are configured to process the region's heavy, sour grades and cannot easily switch to light, sweet alternatives from either side of the Atlantic, June Goh, senior analyst at Sparta, said in a note on March 10.
Atlantic Basin crude "cannot be the magic pill" even if refining margins continue to soar because the refineries simply cannot run those grades as a direct replacement to Middle East ones, Goh said.