The U.S. sanctions on Venezuela from late last month cut off more heavy and sour crude oil supply to the global market, leading to the lowest premium of quality light sweet Brent over heavier and sour crude grades because of limited heavy oil supply worldwide. At times when supply of various crude grades is not distorted, Brent usually trades at a premium of $3-$4 a barrel over Dubai, but since January, the premium of Brent over Dubai has been consistently below $1 a barrel, Eesha Muneeb, pricing specialist for the Dubai crude oil benchmark at S&P Global Platts, writes . To top off the sanctions on Iran and the OPEC cuts, the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela at the end of January further tightened the heavy crude market, and traders expect the market to tighten even more in the coming months. Despite initial expectations that the Venezuelan oil that would […]