Asia’s spot premium for high sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) softened on Thursday as trade slowed in recent sessions, while onshore inventories at Singapore climbed for a fourth straight week.

The high inventory levels have dampened the broader spot market, with downstream bunker differentials for HSFO marine fuel holding in discounts to cargo quotes, trade sources said.

Most of the week’s onshore fuel oil imports hailed from Nigeria, Russia and Mexico, Enterprise Singapore data showed.

Meanwhile, very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) was rangebound on Thursday, while cracks hovered above $10 a barrel. HSFO cracks continued to trade at discounts to crude quotes.

INVENTORY DATA

– Fujairah heavy fuel inventories rose 20.9% to 8.75 million barrels (1.38 million tons) in the week to June 9, FOIZ data published by S&P Global Commodity Insights showed.

– Singapore residual fuel inventories were at 23.71 million barrels (about 3.73 million metric tons) in the week to June 11, up 5% from the previous week, Enterprise Singapore data showed.

OTHER NEWS

– Oil prices eased on Thursday as market participants assessed a U.S. decision to move personnel from the Middle East ahead of talks with Iran over the latter’s nuclear-related activity.

– Russia’s offline primary oil refining capacity expected in July has been revised up by 21% from the previous plan due to adjustments to maintenance plans, according to Reuters calculations based on data from industry sources.

– Bahrain’s state oil firm Bapco Energies is monitoring the situation in the region and its operations are unaffected, it said on Thursday, after U.S. military personnel’s dependents were allowed to leave the country because of regional tensions.

– An ethane tanker that loaded in the United States headed to India on Wednesday, ship tracking data showed, after Washington required U.S. exporters to seek licenses to ship the shale gas to top buyer China.

WINDOW TRADES

– 180-cst HSFO: No trade

– 380-cst HSFO: Two trades

– 0.5% VLSFO: No trade
Source: Reuters