Brent settled at $101.87/bbl, up $1.67 on the session, while WTI closed at $89.56/bbl, a $1.45 gain. The two benchmarks moved the same direction but at different speeds, pushing the spread from $12.00 yesterday to $12.31.

A wider spread reshapes cross-basin arbitrage. Far East spot grades priced off Brent — ESPO and Oman — see their CIF conversion move against Atlantic barrels. For every $1 the gap widens, American grades linked to WTI or ASCI (Lula, Bonny Light) lose a slice of their Asian edge. The switch window for buyers stays open roughly two weeks.

For SNSUC's seven re-export lines, Urals trades inside the G7 price-cap documentation framework at a Brent discount, so the widening does not change its compliance map. Basrah Light and Dubai, however, need their CIF quotes rebuilt for freight plus premium. Bunker fuel and bitumen rallied together today, a sign heavy-end demand is recovering and the lock-in window for re-exports is still open.

On the desk, this spread argues for pulling STS anchor selection forward. Oman delivered at Fujairah shaves a day of voyage versus Sohar and absorbs roughly half the spread expansion in premium. We would fix the discharge port for two Oman cargoes in the October allocation this week rather than wait for more drift.