Asia’s fuel oil benchmarks were rangebound on Thursday amid a backdrop of largely thin trade, while high supplies continued to weigh on the market.
Spot premium for very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) remained capped under $1 a metric ton to cargo quotes, while high sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) were also in thin premiums.
Singapore’s onshore inventories of fuel oil fell for a second straight week as some sellers were clearing inventories before the year ends, based on data and market sources.
However, fuel oil inflows remained strong, with storage volumes edging higher by 2.4% week-on-week to more than 900,000 tons. Most of the imports were from Indonesia, the Netherlands, and Russia, based on Enterprise Singapore.
Despite the weekly declines, the inventories continued to average higher than last month amid the strong inflows. The stockpiles averaged at 18.36 million tons so far in December, up from 18.15 million tons in November.
Meanwhile, refining margins held rangebound. Singapore’s VLSFO crack closed at premiums near $10 per barrel, while 380-cst HSFO cracks were at discounts of about $5.50 per barrel.
INVENTORY DATA
– Singapore onshore fuel oil stockpiles dropped 4.6% from the previous week to 17.92 million barrels (about 2.82 million metric tons) in the week to Dec. 11, data from Enterprise Singapore showed on Thursday.
