Ship fuel shortage looms as refiners strained by war favour other products

A shortage of fuel oil used in ships and power plants looms in the third quarter as refiners increasingly squeezed by wars that have disrupted both crude processing and tanker traffic prioritise output of diesel and other products at its expense.

While crude oil has avoided major price spikes in recent months, refined product prices have soared as strikes damage refineries in Russia and the Middle East and curbs on ship traffic choke flows. China has also cut refining capacity and exports to avoid burning stocks. Tightening supply threatens to further raise costs for shipowners and power generators already dealing with war-related disruptions, with higher bunker fuel costs potentially feeding into shipping rates.

Asia will be hardest-hit as it is most reliant on Gulf flows disrupted by the Iran war, with Singapore, the world’s largest bunker hub, importing more than half its nearly 1 million barrels a day of demand, according to import data from Kpler.

“Due to the protracted supply disruption in the Middle East, we expect fuel oil supply to remain critically tight in the third quarter,” Rystad analyst Valerie Panopio told Reuters. Fuel oil joins gasoline, diesel and jet fuel among the refined products struggling to keep up with demand. US diesel prices hit record highs on Friday as renewed US-Iran hostilities and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries increased supply disruptions.

Refiners opting to produce other products to tap fatter profits has meant fuel oil has been hit harder. Nigeria’s 650,000-barrel-per-day Dangote refinery, for example, has ramped up diesel, gasoline and jet fuel exports, while its fuel oil exports have dropped, according to Kpler. Dangote and other refineries can use fuel oil as feedstock in secondary refining units to make other fuels. “Record-low gasoline and diesel inventories will incentivise refiners globally to maximise secondary unit runs with more fuel oil feedstock barrels, in turn tightening fuel oil balances,” Energy Aspects analyst Royston Huan said.

Stocks are some 30% below three-year seasonal averages in top hubs Singapore, Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp and Fujairah, data compiled by Reuters shows. Ships sailing longer routes to avoid the Bab el-Mandeb strait or the Red Sea altogether due to threats by Houthi militants are also increasing demand, Panopio noted. The price of the main shipping fuel, very low sulphur fuel oil, is up 76% since the Iran war started, to just under $825 a metric tonne, or $130 a barrel, in Singapore as of September 1, data from bunker price platform ZeroNorth shows. That outstrips a 40% rise in benchmark Brent crude oil over the same period.

Refinery outages in the Middle East have included the Al-Zour refinery in Kuwait, a top fuel oil exporter, which has only exported one 26,000 bpd cargo since March versus around 191,000 bpd in January-February, Kpler data showed. Ukrainian drone attacks have also affected Russia’s refinery output, with its fuel oil exports in August hitting a record low of 591,000 bpd.