Some 477,000 tons of jet has been shipped into the tanks at the site this year, but only 96,000 tons has been reloaded for sale into Ireland.

The tanks are owned by SEM Logistics Milford Haven Limited.

Milford Haven will become a larger storage site by next year.

In March, Singapore-based Puma Energy bought the assets of Murco Petroleum, a subsidiary of Murphy Oil, which included the now defunct 135,000-b/d Milford Haven refinery.

The company, a subsidiary of Trafigura, intends to convert the refinery into a state-of-the-art storage site after taking over at the end of this month.

The Sem Logistics-owned tanks at Milford Haven are already holding more jet inventories than the individual ports around the trading hub of Rotterdam, sources said.

Stocks of jet in Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Flushing hardly increased last week, despite wide contango in the forward curve that makes storing product economical.

Inventory levels inched up to 563,324 metric tons by June 19, up just 2,923 tons from a week earlier, according to data from Genscape.

Stock levels in the four ports are down by 5,834 tons from a year earlier, and tanks are only half full overall.

Tanks at the three ports can hold around 1 million tons.

Storage in the port of Rotterdam, which holds the bulk of the jet stocks — some 328,193 tons last week — was only 39.6% full, Genscape data shows.

But Antwerp is almost full, with stocks of 170,938 tons and capacity utilization of 81.9%.

The trading hub at the mouth of the Rhine is the pricing point for jet throughout Europe.

Economics for storing jet in Europe have been steadily improving recently.

The price of delivered jet cargoes in northwest Europe was assessed at $609.25/ton yesterday, which left them $7.75/ton below the value of August swaps at the time after taking into account underlying low-sulfur gasoil futures.

Trade has been thin, particularly in the Rotterdam area barge market.

“There’s still very much a lack of selling due to the contango in the market,” said one broker. “There is some low level buying interest but no one is going to sell at the moment. People are looking to store. When levels are low enough people are just looking to put stuff in tanks.”

Around half of the volume that has headed into Milford Haven this year has been shipped in by Valero, which owns the nearby Pembroke refinery.

The U.S. oil company has discharged 210,000 tons of jet fuel in six vessels, with product coming from United States (80,000 tons), Spain (85,000 tons) and 45,000 tons from the Middle Eastern Gulf, according to data in the OPIS Tanker Tracker.

Valero has also accounted for all the exports from Milford Haven, with 16 vessels taking product to Ireland.

Each cargo loaded 6,000 tons for regular supply to Dublin and Shannon airports.
Vitol has imported 170,000 tons so far this year, and there is talk of another 100,000 tons due to arrive next week. The Gulf Valour, which loaded in Al Jubail, is discharging 96,000 tons of product today. Vitol has not yet been seen
to export any volumes.

Noble is due to discharge the SKS Driva at SEM Logistics Milford Haven with 96,000 tons on June 28. This vessel was last seen in Singapore, but rumors are that the cargo loaded in China.

Total storage capacity at Sem Logistics in Milford Haven is 1.2 million tons, which means that 40% of the capacity is currently being used for jet fuel.