sign up for our middle east newsletter and follow us middleeast for news on the region saudi arabia lowered oil prices for customers in its main market of asia after futures slumped with traders fretting about the health of the global economy a softening us economy and continued fragility among its banks as well as weak manufacturing data in china have triggered a renewed fall in brent and wti futures refining margins have also sunk statecontrolled saudi aramco cut all official selling prices for asia in june the company’s key arab light grade was reduced to 255 a barrel above the regional benchmark 25 cents less than the price for this month a bloomberg survey of refiners and traders from last week forecasted a slightly bigger drop of 45 cents aramco sells about 60 of its crude shipments to asia most of them under longterm contracts pricing for which is reviewed each month china japan south korea and india are the biggest buyers the company raised all prices for european customers and left most us grades unchanged the kingdom is the world’s largest oil exporter and leads the opec group of producers along with russia several members of the 23nation alliance including riyadh decided early last month to cut production by more than 1 million barrels a day saying it was a “precautionary measure” to stabilize the market brent crude futures jumped above 87 a barrel after the announcement but are now back to 72 signaling how bearish investors have become the next opec meeting is on june 34 and the group has decided to make it an inperson gathering rather than a virtual one that signals the group’s resolve to stabilize oil markets and it may opt for another supply reduction according to helima croft head of commodity strategy at rbc capital markets llc the company’s osp decisions are often followed by other gulf producers such as iraq and kuwait