Residual fuel oil stocks at key trading hub Singapore eased 2% from the previous week despite a rebound in net imports, official data showed on Thursday.

Onshore fuel oil stocks were at 20.73 million barrels (3.26 million tonnes) in the week ended Feb. 16, Enterprise Singapore data showed. O/SING1

The decline came despite an uptick in weekly net imports, which rose by 27% to 645,000 tonnes in the same week.

However, weekly net imports averaged lower on a month-on-month basis, at 577,000 tonnes a week in February versus 611,000 tonnes a week in January.
Singapore’s top net fuel oil import volumes hailed from Malaysia at 348,000 tonnes, followed by Algeria at 108,000 tonnes and South Korea at 100,000 tonnes.
Meanwhile, top destinations for Singapore’s fuel oil net exports were China at 65,000 tonnes, Japan at 29,000 tonnes and New Zealand at 21,000 tonnes.

Total fuel oil supplies to Asia, most of which end up in key trading hub Singapore, are estimated at above 5.5 million tonnes in February, based on latest assessments by Refinitiv Oil Research this week.

This compares higher with 4.5 to 5.5 million tonnes in January, reflecting an amply supplied market that is led by a continued influx of Russian supplies despite the recent price cap.

Singapore’s onshore fuel stocks did not show large spikes despite the influx of Russian flows, as most of the flows were stored in floating storages offshore the trading hub, said Refinitv Oil Research.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh; editing by Uttaresh.V)