Asian Oil Prices Crash After Mystery Trader Who Bid Dubai Oil To $170, Identified

Something strange happened exactly a week ago: with WTI trading at $100, and Brent spiking to almost $120 on brief fears that the US would halt exports (thus landlocking WTI and prompting a record gap with Brent), Asian oils - in the form of cash Dubai and Oman crudes - soared to the highest price ever record for a barrel of oil anywhere, in any variant: just over $170. It prompted, what we called,a splintering of the oil market.

And now we have three oil markets: Asia (Oman oil at $167), Brent ($113) and US (WTI $97) https://t.co/uHmMD24E9G pic.twitter.com/41a4BhKOIA

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 19, 2026