Total's Trading Unit Corners U.S. Crude Supply

Atlantic Trading and Marketing Inc., the trading arm of France’s TotalEnergies SE, is bidding up the US physical crude market, according to people familiar with the deals, Davika Krishna Kumar, Julia Fanzeres, and Alex Longley reported for Bloomberg News.

Overseas buyers must pay an additional $1 or $2 per barrel to get the crude shipped to the Gulf Coast for export. I Photo: TotalEnergies

West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma, has jumped to its highest premium since November, and that’s on top of futures surging above $90 a barrel.

Overseas buyers must pay an additional $1 or $2 per barrel to get the crude shipped to the Gulf Coast for export.

At these levels, American crude is quickly becoming too expensive for buyers from Asia to Europe who have relied on the US as the supplier of last resort to plug the global oil shortfall led by OPEC+ cuts.

While that could result in more oil staying in the US, the price jump will inevitably filter through to higher gasoline and fuel costs in the US and beyond, threatening to quicken the pace of inflation everywhere.

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