Singapore fuel oil inventories at 9-year low

Singapore

FEWER net imports of fuel oil into Singapore, in the week ended Aug 22, dragged its inventories to the lowest in more than nine years, official data showed on Thursday.

Singapore's weekly onshore fuel oil inventories dropped 7 per cent, or 1.039 million barrels, or about 155,000 tonnes, to 14.233 million barrels, or 2.124 million tonnes, in the week ended Aug 22, data from International Enterprise (IE) Singapore showed.

Net imports of fuel oil into Singapore, in the week ended Wednesday, were at a two-week low of 613,000 tonnes, down from 804,000 tonnes in the week before, the data showed.

Singapore fuel oil net imports have averaged 748,000 tonnes per week in 2018.

This week's onshore fuel oil inventories were 42 per cent lower than a year ago, the widest year-on-year deficit in at least three years.

Singapore fuel oil inventories were last lower in the week ended July 30, 2009 at 14.059 million barrels, or 2.098 million tonnes.

Fuel oil stocks in Singapore have been hammered by months of below-average arbitrage inflows due to tighter global supplies and firm demand in the Middle East to meet strong seasonal consumption there from power producers.

However, while demand from the Middle East starts to wind down as summer comes to a close, industry participants said that they expected arbitrage supplies into Asia to gradually recover in the coming weeks.

Singapore's net exports of fuel oil to China topped the week ended Aug 22 at 125,000 tonnes, a 10-week high, followed by Japan at 61,000 tonnes and Bangladesh at 21,000 tonnes.

The largest net imports into Singapore originated from Malaysia at 182,000 tonnes, followed by India at 168,000 tonnes, Russia at 99,000 tonnes and Belgium at 75,000 tonnes.

Fuel oil imports into Singapore from India were at their highest since at least end-2015.

Fuel oil inventories in Singapore have averaged 19.585 million barrels, or 2.923 million tonnes, a week since the start of 2018, compared with 23.552 million barrels, or 3.515 million tonnes, in 2017. REUTERS