The CPC Blend market fell below Dated Brent for the first time since early-August on Tuesday, as differentials continued to drop on oversupply and falling refinery margins.
On Tuesday, Platts assessed Aframax cargoes of CPC Blend, basis CIF Augusta, at a discount of 0.5 cents/b to the Mediterranean Dated Strip, their lowest level relative to the 13-28 day forward Dated Brent strip since August 4.
Traders said that the drop in differentials is not unexpected given the substantially longer provisional loading program for November, which was released mid-way through European trading on Monday, showing a sharp increase in expected exports compared with the final November schedule.
Exports of the grade are set to increase by 544,500 mt to 3.775 million mt from October in the longest loading schedule ever out of the terminal north of Novorossiisk.
"Definitely the sweet market should go down...Light [product] cracks are decreasing, and refining margins are just collapsing unfortunately. The differentials for sweet grades are just too high at the moment," a trader said.
CPC Blend differentials have dropped more than 85 cents/b since the start of October.
