October 9, 2015 [OPIS] - A shortage of onshore storage for refined products in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp region may have seen "several" Long Range 2 tankers chartered for floating storage, Energy Aspects said.
The London-based energy consultancy said very low water levels on the Rhine had hampered the resupply of inland European markets and led to a rapid build-up of inventories in the region.
As a result, there was market talks that “several large players in the northwest European market” had chartered the tankers, which can hold about 90,000-ton cargoes of refined product, to use for floating storage. Larger players in the diesel market include Vitol, Litasco, Trafigura and Shell, OPIS data shows.
Gasoil stocks in the ARA hit a record 3.754 million tons this week, according to Energy Aspects, without saying where it had received the information.
An oversupply of diesel combined with low water levels on the Rhine has seen diesel barges differentials trading at record low levels this week. Barges in the ARA trading hub were assessed on Oct. 6 at an $11.30 discount to the front-month low-sulfur gasoil future, trading on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange, the lowest differential ever seen.
U.S.-Europe diesel exports are tracked at an 11-month high in October, at 1.5 million tons on 36 tankers, with a further 500,000 tons seen arriving from ships loaded at new refineries in the Middle East. Europe’s diesel imports from the Middle East have nearly quadrupled this year, helping depress prices as the U.S. competes with Russia, the biggest supplier, for market share.
