Cash premium for Asia’s very-low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) declined on Wednesday in tandem with weakness in crude oil benchmarks.

The cash premium for 0.5% VLSFO slipped to $6.89 a tonne over Singapore quotes from $7.03 a day earlier.

In physical markets, there were several offers but none of them could match the only two bids for VLSFO resulting in no trades for an eleventh trading session. There were no trades for high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) as well.

The 380-cst HSFO premium was steady at $4.50 a tonne over Singapore quotes, and the 180-cst cash premium closed below $1 a tonne on Wednesday.

TENDERS

Indian Oil offered 22,000-24,000 tonnes of 180-cst fuel oil for loading during mid-June from Mumbai in a tender that closed on Tuesday, market participants said.

INVENTORIES

– Fuel oil stocks at the trading hub of Fujairah rose by 844,000 barrels to 11.999 million barrels in th week to May 29, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.

WINDOW TRADES

– 180-cst HSFO: No trade

– 380-cst HSFO: No trade

– 0.5% VLSFO: No trade

NEWS

– Oil prices fell on Wednesday on a stronger U.S. dollar and as weak data from top oil importer China raised demand fears.

– Drones attacked two oil refineries just 40-50 miles (65-80 km) east of Russia’s biggest oil export terminals on Wednesday, sparking a fire at one and causing no damage to the other, according to Russian officials.

– An Indian agency has stepped in to provide safety certification for most of Gatik Ship Management’s fleet, a major carrier of Russian oil to India, after Lloyd’s Register and the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) withdrew classification for many of its vessels, records show.
Source: Reuters