Oil product stocks in the Middle East’s key oil hub of Fujairah rose 8.2% in the week to Monday as light and middle distillate inventories rebounded strongly. Total oil product stocks were 18.149 million barrels, up 1.37 million barrels from a week earlier, according to data from the Fujairah Energy Data Committee. Stocks of light distillates rose by 30.2% week on the week to 7.484 million barrels, bouncing back from a near five-month low last week, the FEDCom data showed.
“Market activity has been slow and quiet due to Ramadan, even more so compared to this time last year. But demand is definitely expected to pick up after the Ramadan,” a Middle Eastern trade source said. The Islamic holy month comes to an end June 14. Stocks of middle distillates also rose, by 14.8% to 2.648 million barrels.
The East of Suez gasoil market has been under pressure due to fresh spot barrels becoming available. That was particularly the case from India, the Middle East and China, S&P Global Platts Analytics said in a report Wednesday.
Bahrain’s Bapco has been an active seller, offering as much as 120,000 mt of 10 ppm gasoil for loading in the second half of June in two separate tenders in recent weeks. Indian gasoil exports were expected to rise as its domestic demand declines seasonally in Q3, the report said. Stocks of heavy distillates and residues fell 8.1% to 8.017 million barrels. Bunker activity in Fujairah remained muted amid uncertainty over the direction of crude prices.
However, the first-month/second-month time spread for Arab Gulf 180 CST HSFO swaps saw a strengthening backwardation to $4.25/mt Tuesday, the Platts Analytics report said. That was driven by a tightening Singapore market that has received reduced arbitrage volumes from the Middle East due to summer power demand, it said. S&P Global Platts holds exclusive rights to publish Fujairah oil inventory data and has deployed a Blockchain network for its collation.
About the S&P Global Platts and FOIZ Fujairah Data Project:
The government of Fujairah in 2016 announced a plan to publish weekly data on refined products held at onshore commercial terminals at Fujairah as part of its effort to position the Indian Ocean port as a global oil trading and storage. It appointed S&P Global Platts to distribute the weekly inventory data. FEDComwas established by the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone to collect, verify and distribute inventory data to replicate the data sets provided at other global trading centers such as Singapore and Rotterdam.Fujairah has about 41.5 million barrels of commercial oil product land storage available for leasing.
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7th June 2018
