Medium-sour crudes from the US Gulf of Mexico are being snapped up by overseas buyers, paving way for a record six supertankers to load at the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) in a matter of weeks, Reuters reported citing people familiar with the matter.
The six scheduled loadings in late May and early June would double the record of Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) reached in December.
The US sanctions on Venezuela and Iran, combined with the production cuts by OPEC, have made US medium-sour grades, including Mars, to fill Asian oil buyers’ needs for new sources of supply.
Mars Sour, a Gulf of Mexico crude produced by Shell, traded at a $4.40 a barrel premium to US crude futures on Monday, falling from its 2019 peak of around $8.10 premium in mid-February.
‘New Prime’, chartered by Shell, began loading crude at LOOP on Monday, following two departures since Friday of supertankers chartered by China’s Unipec and Mercuria, according to trade sources and data from Refinitiv Eikon and vessel-tracking service Kpler.
Meanwhile, the Unipec-chartered tanker ‘Coswisdom Lake’ left last week with almost 2 million barrels for Chinese Shuidong port.
The crude oil tanker ‘Captain X. Kyriakou’, chartered by Mercuria, also nearly fully loaded, departed for an unknown destination in Asia on Monday, the data showed.
Three other supertankers, are expected to load at LOOP through the middle of June, the Reuters source mentioned.
In recent weeks, more crude produced in the US Gulf of Mexico has been piped to LOOP for loading onto vessels instead of to domestic refiners, trade sources said.
