NWE storage fills, December arrivals lower: source
Rumours that small clips of jet fuel were being shipped into Northwest Europe on an MR vessel from the Mediterranean were scotched Monday by traders. "Technically it could happen, and any cargoes going through the Mediterranean are being shown around, although buying is very limited," said one source, adding: "But I don't see that much jet fuel available in the Mediterranean--and there's no super-aggressive offers."
And while fixtures are still being reported bringing product into the NWE region from the Persian Gulf and Asia, sources suggested volumes seen into the NWE region were a lot less than seen earlier in the quarter. Earlier, jet fuel market and shipping sources suggested up to 2 million mt of jet fuel was bound for NWE from Asia during the month of October. "I think [December] arrivals might be less than October indeed, but still [there's a] lot of oil coming, and no demand anywhere else," said another trader, although he hinted that this situation may change. "But now it's nothing like that figure--storage has filled up," said another trader. But he noted the increasing demand for kerosene in the UK and Ireland as the cold weather season descends on Northern Europe. "Some barrels will stay East--December is not looking huge [for jet arrivals]," said another source, adding: "We've seen NWE demand get destroyed quite heavily."
During the Platts Market on Close assessment process, there was just one cargo offer, shown from Totsa, and no cargo bids seen. Over in the barge market, Hetco showed an offer for the most prompt dates, as did BP. The third offer came from KLM, with a laycan period just one day later, December 5 - 9. There were no barge bids shown during the MOC assessment process.
01-Dec-08