Fujairah oil product stocks fall for 4th week, longest slide since October 2020

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FUJAIRAH - Oil product inventories at the Port of Fujairah dropped for a fourth consecutive week, the longest stretch since the record slide in October 2020, as middle distillates slumped to an 11-week low and heavy distillates declined for the first time in three weeks.

Total stockpiles on 11th January stood at 22.122 million barrels, down 5.3 per cent from a week earlier and the lowest since 30th November last year, according to Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, FOIZ, data provided exclusively to S&P Global Platts yesterday.

Stocks are down 10 per cent in the past four weeks, led by a 27 per cent drop in middle distillates such as gasoil, diesel, jet fuel and kerosene. Middle distillates on 11th January stood at 4.4 million barrels, down 2 per cent from a week earlier and the lowest since 26th October, 2020. They have dropped for five weeks in a row, the longest stretch since the data series began in January 2017.

There were 272,000 barrels of gasoil destined for Sudan from Fujairah in the week started 4th January, the first such shipment in a year, according to data analytics firm Kpler. The rebound is good news for middle distillates, the hardest-hit product category in 2020 when stocks averaged 77 per cent higher than in 2019 as the pandemic crippled demand for jet fuel.

Inventories of heavy distillates covering fuel oil for power generation and marine bunkers dropped 11 per cent in the week to 11th January to 10.38 million barrels, the lowest since 7th December, 2020. Malaysia has been taking fuel oils from Fujairah for the past four weeks, and Sri Lanka returned as a destination country in the week started 4th January, according to Kpler.

Light distillates stocks stood at 7.342 million barrels as of 11th January, up 1 per cent from a week earlier.