Dubai — Oil product stocks in the Middle East's key oil hub of Fujairah fell 10.7% week on week to a five-month low as inventories of light, middle and heavy distillates declined.
Total oil stocks stood at 16.156 million barrels on Monday, down nearly 2 million barrels from a week earlier, according to the Fujairah Energy Data Committee.
The biggest drop was in the stocks of heavy distillates and residues, which fell 17.2% week on week to 7.399 million barrels -- a near five-month low, the data showed.
In Fujairah, trade sources said Wednesday that tighter cargo supplies in recent days were still lending support to bunker fuel premiums, while buying sentiment remained steady. Trading activity was lower last week due to the Eid al-Adha holidays, but Fujairah bunker demand has been rising steadily since the end of July as prices were competitive compared with Singapore, sources said.
Stocks of light distillates also fell by 3.4% week on week to 5.225 million barrels, the data showed.
Sentiment in the East of Suez gasoline market has weakenedcooled after the spike seen following the FCC outage at Reliance Industries Ltd.'s Jamnagar refinery two weeks ago, S&PGlobal Platts Analytics said in a report Thursday.
"Overall, [the market] feels less tight now with various refineries getting back to normal," a Singapore-based trader said.
Meanwhile, a few fresh buy tenders from the Middle East were seen. Kuwait's KPC has sought a combination cargo comprising 25,000 mt of 91 RON gasoline and 25,000 mt of 95 RON gasoline for delivery over September 19-20 to Mina al-Ahmadi in a tender that closed August 28, with same-day validity, Platts Analytics said.
Stocks of middle distillates were down 5.8% to 3.532 million barrels, retreating from the year's high seen last week. Along with the gradual strengthening of gasoil time spreads swaps, this is indicative of expectations for overall tighter gasoil supply balances heading into September and October, the report said.
In India, refiners have strategically altered their oil products output to maximize gasoil yields due to attractive margins, but exports could fall during the rest of the year as domestic demand recovers after the monsoon season, Platts reported Wednesday.
S&P Global Platts holds exclusive rights to publish Fujairah oil inventory data and has deployed a blockchain network for its collation.
