Independent Refiners "We are watching Quality Discounts as Middle East..."

Research evidence excerpt

Independent Refiners "We are watching Quality Discounts as Middle East..."

Global Research

28 June 2026ab

Independent Refiners Equities

North AmericaWe are watching Quality Discounts as Middle

East crude gets ready to come to market Energy

Manav Gupta

Analyst

manav.gupta@ubs.com

More Middle Eastern Crude coming to the market +1-212-713 4399

On June 22, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Saumya Jain

Control (OFAC) issued General License X (GL X), which temporarily lifts sanctions on Associate Analyst

Iranian crude oil for a strict 60-day window ending August 21, 2026. This represents a saumya.jain@ubs.com

major, unexpected geopolitical shift tied to a broader interim peace framework (the +1-212-882 0089

Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding) negotiated to de-escalate recent military Sumantra Banerjee

conflicts and secure commercial transit. Financial institutions and energy traders can Associate Analyst

participate in transactions "ordinarily incident and necessary" to the production, sumantra.banerjee@ubs.com

delivery, sale, or offloading of Iranian-origin oil and petrochemical products. Crucially, +1-212-713 5104

the waiver permits these transactions to be settled in U.S. dollar-denominated funds, Ivan Scotto

transitioning Iranian crude out of the "shadow fleet" and into the formal international Associate Analyst

banking system at standard market prices. This coupled with full reopening of Strait of ivan.scotto@ubs.com

Hormuz, would allow incremental Middle Eastern barrels to reach the global markets. +1-212-713 3137

Middle Eastern volumes have a direct correlation to quality discounts (price discounts

heavy and medium crudes realize due to lower quality, which makes them hard to

process).