Fujairah oil stocks rise to 25M barrels

fujairah — Oil product inventories in the UAE’s Fujairah trading hub rose 7.8 per cent week on week to a record 25.088 million barrels Monday, led by swelling stockpiles of marine fuels and other heavy distillate residues, data released Wednesday by the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, FOIZ, at the city’s port showed.

The previous record was 24.4 million barrels in July 2017, FOIZ data provided exclusively to S&P Global Platts showed.

45% Jump in Fujairah stockpiles on a year-to-date basis

Heavy distillates inventories jumped 18 per cent week on week to 11.747 million barrels, the highest since December 2017 and exceeding the total for light distillates for the first time since October, the data showed.

Fuel oil demand may be seeing the impact of reduced crude shipments owing to Opec supply cuts and global refinery maintenance, said Alex Yap, senior analyst at Platts in Singapore. It was still too early for high sulphur fuel oil demand to start declining ahead of next year’s International Maritime Organisation 2020 rules mandating lower sulphur bunker fuel, he added. Light distillate stockpiles were little changed at 11.212 million barrels, down 0.3 per cent on the week, while middle distillates inventories rose 4 per cent to 2.129 million barrels.

On a year-to-date basis, total Fujairah stockpiles were up 45 per cent, led by an 89 per cent climb in heavy distillates and residues. Middle distillates were up 45 per cent and light distillates up 16 per cent. Light distillates include gasoline, middle distillates include gasoil and jet fuel and heavy products are fuel oil used for marine bunkers and power generation.