Crude oil exports from the only deep-water port in the United States, the offshore oil port in Louisiana, doubled in December from December to a record high, driven by strong demand from Asian refineries, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing vessel tracking data compiled.
Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), the only U.S. port that can handle and fully load supertankers with 2 million barrels of oil each, left a total of eight tankers to India, China and South Korea in January. The tankers, mostly supertankers, shipped a total of 15 million barrels of oil from the Louisiana oil export terminal last month – according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
U.S. crude oil exports are benefiting from the recovery in oil demand in Asia, as well as the reduction in futures supplies to some Asian customers by major OPEC producers, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
Saudi Arabia has reportedly announced that the decline in crude oil volume for at least nine customers in Asia and Europe will be forecast for February. The cuts are made for shipments under long-term contracts and relate to the heavier grades of Aramco.
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Iraq, OPEC’s second largest producer behind Saudi Arabia, has also reportedly – quite unexpectedly – reduced its 2021 futures supply to several major Indian refineries by 10-20 percent.
At the same time, it is estimated that the largest oil importers in Asia increased their imports in January by 7.5 percent in January to 26.14 million barrels per day (bpd), according to tanker tracking and port data compiled by Refinitiv and quoted by Reuters.
Imports of Chinese oil rose by an estimated 33 percent to about 12 million bpd, compared to just 9 million bpd in December, the Refinitiv data showed.
India also increases imports, with official government data showing that crude oil imports increased by 9.5 per cent in December 2020, while crude oil flow increased by 0.9 per cent compared to December 2019, just before the start of the pandemic.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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