Saudi January oil prices may be cut to 5-year low for Asian buyers

• Arab Light may fall 30-40 cents
• Spot premiums fall this month
• Opec+ to hold policy steady

Saudi Arabia is expected to lower its January crude price for Asian buyers for a second month to its lowest level for five years, tracking the decline in spot benchmark prices, sources said on Friday.

The January official selling price (OSP) for flagship Arab Light crude is likely to decline by 30-40 cents a barrel to a premium between 60 cents and 70 cents to the average of Oman/Dubai quotes, five Asia-based refining sources said in a Reuters survey.

That would mark a second monthly decline and the lowest since January 2021, Reuters data showed.

The January OSPs for other crude grades – Arab Extra Light, Arab Medium and Arab Heavy – could fall by 30-50 cents a barrel from December, the sources said.

The forecasts mirrored a downward trend in cash Dubai’s premium to swaps, which have averaged 90 cents per barrel so far this month, down 32 cents from October.

The pressure came from ample supplies and a surplus outlook as Opec+ lifts output and demand growth slows.

Opec+ has raised output targets by around 2.9 million barrels per day from April to December.

The eight Opec+ countries, which have been gradually raising output in 2025, are expected to keep their policy to pause hikes in the first quarter of 2026 unchanged at their upcoming meeting on Sunday, sources said.

There were also unexpected additional supplies this month from Kuwait Petroleum Corp which offered some 3.9 million barrels of heavy crude to the spot market after an outage at its Al-Zour refinery due to a fire.

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A cut in prices could spur term demand from China, where independent refiners received the first batch of 2026 import quotas this week, one of the survey respondents said.

Saudi crude OSPs are usually released around the 5th of each month, and set the trend for Iranian, Kuwaiti and Iraqi prices, affecting about 9 million barrels per day of crude bound for Asia.

State oil giant Saudi Aramco sets its crude prices based on recommendations from customers and after calculating the change in the value of its oil over the past month, based on yields and product prices.