Oil Arbitrage 101: How Price Signals Move Barrels Around the Globe
In this episode of Oil Ground Up, host Rory sits down with June Goh, Senior Market Analyst at Sparta, for a masterclass on the physical oil market. With a background as a chemical engineer and years of experience in scheduling, trading, and strategy at Shell's Pulau Bukong refinery, June offers a uniquely nuanced and holistic understanding of how refineries operate and drive global commodity flows. June begins by demystifying commodity arbitrage, the pricing differences that physical and paper traders watch to make decisions. She explains how Sparta, a company founded "for traders, by traders," automates these complex, time-intensive calculations to provide real-time signals on whether trade routes are open or closed.
June also unpacks the opaque Chinese oil market, explaining the surprising strength in demand driven by manufacturing, the government's focus on energy security through strategic stock-building, and the ongoing consolidation of its refining sector into "mega independent refineries". Finally, the episode looks ahead to India, a critical swing market where potential EU sanctions on products made from Russian oil could dramatically reshape global trade.
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