Iran, which until recently imported middle distillates from Singapore, is reported to be moving a gasoil cargo to the Southeast Asian city state, shipping sources and shipping fixtures showed Wednesday.
Sources said the Horizon Diana, a Long Range clean product tanker, is moving a 60,000 mt gasoil cargo, loading July 16, either from Assaluyeh or Bandar Abbas to Singapore.
The charterer of the vessel or the receiver of the cargo could not be ascertained.
The gasoil cargo, heard to be of a high 1% sulfur grade, is the first Iranian cargo to have been shipped to Singapore "in a really long time," Singapore-based trading sources familiar with the Middle Eastern gasoil markets said.
Iranian gasoil typically ends up in storage tanks in the Middle East, one source said, although a couple of 1.0% sulfur gasoil cargoes from the Middle East were heard to have made their way to Singapore some months back. However, this could not be verified.
Platts had reported on May 24 that Iran had sold its first gasoil cargo to a country other than Iraq.
A 30,000 mt gasoil cargo was loaded on the Libyan Medium Range tanker -- the Maetiga -- from Bandar Abbas to Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port of Yanbu, which according to sources had later headed to Djibouti, where it discharged the cargo.
Iran reported May 13 that it had exported its first gasoil cargo to Iraq, the oil ministry's news agency Shana reported at the time. It said a consignment of 1.8 million liters (11,322 barrels) had been shipped to Iraq.
