Onshore fuel oil stockpiles at key trade and storage hub Singapore rose in the week to Sept. 4, but held below the August average, data showed on Thursday.

Fuel oil stockpiles edged up 3.4% to 18.76 million barrels, Enterprise Singapore data showed.

However, this was below the August level, which averaged 18.81 million barrels per week.

Spot benchmarks for 0.5% low-sulphur fuel oil recently jumped to their highest in more than nine months amid tight supply for prompt dates.

Total weekly fuel oil imports dropped for a third consecutive week, according to the Enterprise Singapore data.

The imports were at 427,000 metric tons in the week to Sept. 4, down 46% from the previous week. Mexico was the top origin for imports, excluding movements from storage hub Malaysia.

On the export front, fuel oil volumes flowing out of Singapore storage totalled around 232,000 tons, down 44% from the previous week.

Most of the week’s exports were bound for China, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)