East of Suez bunker prices are up with Brent on the day, and bad weather has disrupted bunkering in eastern Chinese ports.
Changes on the day to 16.00 SGT (08.00 GMT) today:
- VLSFO prices up in Fujairah ($11/mt), Singapore ($9/mt) and Zhoushan ($8/mt)
- LSMGO prices up in Singapore ($19/mt), Fujairah ($10/mt) and Zhoushan ($9/mt)
- HSFO380 prices up in Fujairah ($8/mt) and Singapore ($7/mt)
VLSFO prices have risen by similar amount across East of Suez ports today. Singapore remains at discounts of $3-7/mt to Fujairah and Zhoushan.
Hi5 spreads have widened across all three East of Suez ports today, with Singapore’s standing at $116/mt and Fujairah’s at $113/mt.
Fujairah’s HSFO380 lead times have tightened further now standing at 11 days ahead, while VLSFO and LSMGO are more readily available in the port at seven days.
Rough weather has delayed some bunker deliveries at anchorage in Zhoushan and Singapore. Zhoushan’s bunker suppliers were already clearing backlogs after a previous weather disruptions, and were expected to have cleared them before the end of the week before the most recent bout.
Brent
The front-month ICE Brent futures contract has gone up by $0.88/bbl in the past day, to $85.10/bbl at 16.00 SGT (08.00 GMT) today.
Brent is up with support from a surprise standstill in US crude stock movements.
Analysts polled by S&P Global Platts expected US crude inventories to gain 2 million bbls in the week to 15 October. The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a 3.29 million-bbl build on Tuesday.
Yesterday’s official figures from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) defied those expectations with virtually unchanged stock levels at 426.54 million bbls, and boosted Brent by almost $1/bbl in the 15 minutes after they came out.
“While the weekly numbers showed that commercial crude oil inventories declined by just 431Mbbls, total oil and product stocks fell by 9.81MMbbls over the week…If this trend continues there will be growing concerns over hitting tank bottoms,” ING strategists Warren Patterson and Wenyu Yao said.
Patterson and Yao added that OPEC+ has come under reinforced pressure to increase output to stave off further oil price rises. Calls from India and the US to pump more have recently been echoed by Japan. The three major economies are concerned that high energy prices could hold back economic activity as they recover from the pandemic downturn.