Singapore fuel oil stockpiles rebound on uptick in Russia, US imports

Singapore’s onshore fuel oil inventories rebounded to a three-week high, driven by stronger imports fromRussia and the United States, data showed on Thursday.

Inventories climbed 16.2% to 23.36 million barrels (3.68 million metric tons) in the week to Feb. 21, the latest data from Enterprise Singapore showed.

Net fuel oil imports, calculated by subtracting total exports from total imports, rose 30.5% to about 819,000 tons.

The influx was led by an uptick in direct Russia-origin volumes, which nearly tripled week-on-week to more than382,000 tons.

Meanwhile, the U.S. was the next top origin for fuel oil arrivals into landed storage at Singapore, with volumes rising to 142,000 tons compared with nearly zero the previous week.

The inventory build also came amid a backdrop of slower bunkering demand in recent weeks, industry sources said.

On the exports front, total volumes climbed week-on-week to about 567,000 tons, mostly headed for Hong Kong and China.

Singapore cash premiums for the benchmark grade of 0.5% low-sulphur fuel oil MFO05-SIN-DIF held steady at about $7 a ton in recent sessions.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by Eileen Soreng)