Crude oil exports from the only deep-sea port in the United States, Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, doubled to a record high in January from December, driven by robust demand from Asian refineries, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. compiled.
Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), the only US port that could handle and fully load super tankers with 2 million barrels of oil each, saw a total of eight tankers depart for India, China and South Korea in January. Those tankers, most of them super tankers, shipped a total of 15 million barrels of oil from the Louisiana oil export terminal last month – double the volume exported from the port in December and a record high for the terminal, according to the data. collected by Bloomberg.
US crude oil exports are benefiting from the recovery in oil demand in Asia, as well as the reduction in forward deliveries to some Asian customers by the largest OPEC producers, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Saudi Arabia has reportedly announced a reduction in the volumes of crude oil to be delivered to at least nine customers in Asia and Europe in February. The cuts were made for shipments with long-term contracts and relate to Aramco’s heavier grades.
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Iraq, OPEC’s second largest producer after Saudi Arabia, has also reportedly – quite unexpectedly – cut its 2021 forward deliveries to several major Indian refineries by 10-20 percent.
At the same time, Asia’s major oil importers are estimated to have ramped up their imports by 7.5 percent month-on-month in January to 26.14 million barrels per day (bpd), according to tanker tracking and port data collected by Refinitiv and quoted by Reuters.
China’s oil imports are estimated to be up 33 percent to about 12 million bps, up from just 9 million bps in December, Refinitiv data showed.
India is also boosting imports, with official government data showing crude oil imports are up 9.5 percent in December 2020, while crude oil transit volumes are up 0.9 percent compared to December 2019, just before start of the pandemic.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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