Onshore fuel oil stocks climbed 3% to a five-week high of 21.24 million barrels (3.34 million tonnes) in the week ended Feb. 8, Enterprise Singapore data showed. The uptick emerged despite a decline in weekly net imports, which fell 27% to 509,000 tonnes in the same week.
Demand for marine fuel, also known as bunkers, eased at Singapore in recent days as some shippers held out for a further drop in prices amid softening premiums, traders said. Cargo premiums for 0.5% very low sulphur fuel oil have pared gains in recent trading sessions after hitting six-month highs, which have in turn weighed on downstream bunker fuel premiums.
Meanwhile, most of Singapore's net fuel oil imports came from Malaysia at 221,000 tonnes in the week ended Feb. 8, Enterprise Singapore data showed, followed by the United Arab Emirates at 100,000 tonnes and India at 86,000 tonnes.
Top destinations for fuel oil net exports from Singapore continued to be
within Asia. Outflows to China were at 22,000 tonnes, followed by the
Philippines at 18,000 tonnes and Bangladesh at 17,000 tonnes.
Feb 8, Fuel oil (in tonnes) Total Imports Total Exports Net Imports
BANGLADESH 0 17,383 -17,383
BELGIUM 1 0 1
BRAZIL 49,719 0 49,719
CHINA 0 21,975 -21,975
INDIA 86,150 201 85,949
INDONESIA 0 4 -4
KUWAIT 38,668 0 38,668
MALAYSIA 296,812 76,166 220,645
PHILIPPINES 0 17,965 -17,965
SRI LANKA 0 0 0
THAILAND 17,868 0 17,868
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 100,183 0 100,183
UNITED KINGDOM 47,583 0 47,583
VIETNAM 5,986 0 5,986
TOTAL 642,968 133,694 509,274
(Data from Enterprise Singapore)
(Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
