Brent and WTI settled at a $13.54 per-barrel spread today, wider than yesterday's $12.11. The gap is not one leg moving alone: Brent tracks North Sea and Middle East physical forwards, while WTI reacts to Cushing inventories and Gulf Coast export timing. For SNSUC's seven transshipment grades — ESPO, Dubai, Oman, Urals, Basrah Light, Bonny Light and Lula — Brent sits in the denominator of the delivered-price formula, so every $1 of spread change forces a full repricing of the Brent x FX x 7.33 x grade quotation.

Brent closed at $115.21 and WTI at $101.67, up $1.80 and $2.21 respectively. The heavy-end chain held firm: fuel oil rose 3.36% and bitumen 1.54%, so downstream cracks still cover the run. Our refinery quotes lock the load port by name — Mina al Fahal in Oman, Fujairah ADCOP, and Kirkuk-via-Ceyhan for Iraq — because STS transshipment only changes the vessel, never the load port. The discharge port is fixed as an anchorage before the letter of credit opens; later changes are rejected.

On the desk, a wider spread opens the arbitrage of buying WTI-priced Gulf Coast barrels and delivering into the Far East against Brent, but freight and the 60-day LC float are hard costs. At today's level we roll short-haul ESPO and Oman spot first and keep Bonny Light and Lula on term contracts rather than chasing prompt highs.