Residual fuel oil stocks at key trading hub Singapore edged lower week-on-week as a backwardated market continues to spur destocking, even as net imports extended their climb for a third consecutive week.

Onshore fuel oil stocks dipped 1% to 21.17 million barrels (3.33 million tonnes) in the week ended Nov. 16, Enterprise Singapore data showed on Thursday.

Sellers continued to destock amid a steadily backwardated market, which means the current value of oil is higher than it will be in later months and this encourages the release of oil from inventories.

However, the decline in weekly inventory level was offset by an uptick in net fuel oil imports, which jumped 29% week-on-week to 960,000 tonnes.

This was led by a surge in net import volumes from Malaysia to Singapore, which climbed 54% to 516,000 tonnes in the week.

The next biggest net import volumes came from Brazil at 281,000 tonnes, followed by Turkmenistan at 99,000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, top destinations for fuel oil net exports from Singapore were China at 161,000 tonnes, Bangladesh at 25,000 tonnes, and Hong Kong at 19,000 tonnes.

Agencies

Marex Media