Singapore Fuel Oil Stocks Fall

Asia's fuel oil cash differential for benchmark 180-centistoke (cst) was at a discount of $6.50 a tonne for the third day in a row on Wednesday thanks to low demand and high supplies.

Although Singapore's fuel oil stocks fell from a record high - dropping 6 percent or 1.814 million barrels to a two-week low of 28 million in the week to Sept. 22 - overall stockpiles were still far higher than a year earlier.

At nearly 27.6 million barrels, average weekly stocks from Sept. 2 to Sept. 22 were some 46 percent higher than the first four weeks of September in 2014. "The current fuel oil fundamentals are bearish," said a Singapore-based trader.
     
STORAGE NEWS:

The second phase of VTTI's storage unit at Tanjung Bin oil terminal in southern Malaysia has been fully leased to store fuel oil, industry sources said on Wednesday. The second phase added 260,000 cubic metres of storage on Aug. 1 to existing capacity of 893,000 cubic metres. Malaysia's Petronas and Koch Supply and Trading have since leased the tank space equally, one industry source said,
although this could not be confirmed.
    
REFINERY NEWS:

Singapore issued a stop work order on a fire-hit unit at Shell's 500,000 barrel per day (bpd) Bukom refinery on Aug. 25, the company said. Shell stopped all work at units undergoing scheduled
maintenance and eventually stopped all non-essential activities across the site, a spokeswoman said, declining to specify which units were affected or for how long. Singapore Refining Company will shut a 60,000 bpd CDU and a 46,000 bpd gasoline-making unit for four weeks starting in early October for planned maintenance.
    
SINGAPORE CASH DEALS:

Gunvor bought 20,000 tonnes of 180-cst fuel oil from Hin Leong for Oct.13-17 loading at $236 a tonne.