Asia's oil market caught in China rivalry

Beijing

AN intensifying rivalry between China's two top oil traders Chinaoil and Unipec is whipsawing Asia's oil market, pitting the state-owned firms against each other in a battle for control of the region's crude benchmark.

Aggressive trading - with heavy buying by Chinaoil met by selling from Unipec - has pushed up Middle East crude prices for Asia, even as other grades are being pressed lower by a global glut.

Asian buyers are being driven to seek cheaper oil elsewhere or cut refinery runs, but analysts said that Beijing is unlikely to intervene in a process that reflects the growing clout of Chinese traders in global oil markets.

The volumes exchanged by the two firms have been so high that pricing agency Platts is considering whether to allow more crude into a pool of supplies that it uses…