London — The volume of distillates scheduled to arrive in the Mediterranean and Northwest Europe from the US Gulf Coast in August was around 1.02 million mt as of Monday, with 600,000 mt bound for NWE and 420,000 mt expected to arrive in the Mediterranean, S&P Global Platts trade flow software cFlow showed.
The total volume for July was 1.7 million mt, the highest since August 2017, the data showed.
Six vessels thought to be carrying diesel left the US Gulf Coast to head to Europe in the past seven days, according to Platts cFlow, following a week of slower activity on the route.
All are medium-range tankers with one sailing to Fos-sur-Mer in France, one to Gibraltar and the four others going to the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp hub.
The Northwest European and Mediterranean diesel cargo markets have been well supported of late, attracting supply not only from the US Gulf Coast but also from Asia.
"Spreads have all increased, you have a big deficit of oil going forward with the maintenance, all the stuff coming from the east is stopping in the Med and when it goes to NWE it's not for the CIF cargo market," a trader said.
"There are Baltic volumes moving to Latin America so the (CIF NWE diesel cargo) market is tight," he added.
In the Mediterranean, the demand was seen as firm but easily covered by healthy supply.
Not only were the LR1 Jo Provel and the medium-range tanker STI Osceola bringing diesel from the US Gulf Coast to the Mediterranean this month, but the LR2 Southern Spirit was on its way to Turkey, having loaded diesel in Vadinar, India, while another LR2, the Amarthea, just brought a diesel cargo from the same Indian port to Barcelona in Spain.
"There is a bit more diesel supply coming in the Mediterranean but a lot of these (incoming ships) are large vessels so the handy market is still relatively tight," a second trader said.
"There is adequate demand and I don't see a lot of 30,000 mt clips available," he added.
