Onshore fuel oil stockpiles at key trading and storage hub Singapore slipped to a three-week low amid declining imports, data showed on Thursday.

The inventories dipped 1.5% to 19.56 million barrels (3.08 million metric tons) in the week ended July 31, down for a second week, based on Enterprise Singapore.

Net fuel oil imports, calculated by subtracting total exports from total imports, fell more than 23% to about 572,000 tons in the week.

Top cargo origins for imports included Oman and Brazil, excluding storage movements from Malaysia.

Meanwhile, most export volumes out of Singapore were headed for China and Bangladesh.

Onshore fuel oil inventories in July averaged lower at 19.4 million tons per week, compared with 20.0 million tons in June, calculations based on the data showed.

Amid the drop in inventories, fuel oil benchmarks have retained support. Singapore’s spot premium for 0.5% low-sulphur fuel oil MFO05-SIN-DIF reached more than a two-month high of $7.50 per ton in end-July.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)