The world’s most expensive oil variety is traded for nearly 100 USD per barrel

Increased demand for heavy and sweet crude oil varieties amid new shipping regulations has led to a price boost that raised Australian low-sulfur oil varieties to nearly 100 USD per barrel.

This bidding, according to traders, makes the Australian variety the most expensive crude oil in the world.

Under the new International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules for shipping, which came into force on January 1, 2020, only fuels with a maximum sulfur content of 0.5% should be used, unless those vessels have installed the so-called scrubbers – systems that remove sulfur from the exhaust gasses.

Since the introduction of the new regulations, demand for heavy and sweet crude oil varieties has been held back high as they are best suited for low sulfur processing.

This month, Santos, an Australian company, sold a cargo of 550,000 barrels of the Pyrenees oil variety for delivery in March at a premium of more than 30 USD above the Brent price. Pyrenees has only 0.19% sulfur content, according to the latest Platts analysis.

Given that the Brent variety is about 65 USD per barrel, a premium of over 30 USD means that the cargo was sold for close to 100 USD per barrel.

“Heavy sweet commodities like those in our Van Gogh and Pyrenees fields are very well suited to producing fuel that meets new environmental requirements and are currently in high demand”, said Santos spokesperson.

This is probably the most expensive commodity in the world.

Although Australian oil classes are making a huge profit after the introduction of the new shipping rules, the world’s largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, is not changing its oil offerings to meet the demand for lower sulfur grades.