A stalled global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is leading to a fresh build-up of global oil supplies, pushing traders including Trafigura to book tankers to store millions of barrels of crude oil and refined fuels at sea again.
A number of the vessels are newly-built and are due to store gasoil and diesel, for which unsold volumes are especially high after a modest recovery mid-summer. Brent crude oil futures are languishing around US$40 a barrel after posting their biggest weekly decline since June.The spread between Brent crude for prompt delivery and six months in the future has been declining steadily toward US$3 near lows last seen in late May.
Global oil inventories remain sharply above average when looking at recent years. Although stocks have drawn at a pace of around 1.6 million barrels per day over the past 30 days, they are still some 600 million barrels above last year's levels, according to Morgan Stanley. Saudi oil giant Aramco sharply cut its October official selling price for its flagship Arab Light crude to Asia by $1.40 a barrel, hoping to salvage buying interest."There are fewer refinery runs in China, teapots have used up a lot of their import quotas, inventories are still pretty high and crude at current levels are not great for margins."