While it is cutting more than required in the OPEC deal, Saudi Arabia is not ceding its grip on its biggest Asian market—Japan—and is raising market share by selling more light crude to its prized market to compensate for revenues lost from cutting the supply of the heavy crude variety. According to trade flows data by Thomson Reuters Eikon, Japan’s imports of crude oil from Saudi Arabia rose by 7.7 percent annually in the first half this year, to 1.3 million bpd, making the Saudis the biggest crude supplier to Japan. Saudi Arabia’s state oil firm Aramco has been selling more of the Arab Extra Light to Japanese customers, as the Saudis have been offering extra light crude cargoes on top of the volumes that buyers have contracted, two Japanese refining sources told Reuters. Trading sources told Platts in mid-June that the major buyers of Saudi oil in Asia […]