SINGAPORE, April 8 (Reuters) – Singapore residual fuel oil inventories hit a more than 4-month high in the week to April 7, up 2% from the previous week as net import volumes firmed, official data showed on Thursday. Onshore fuel oil stocks climbed by 454,000 barrels, or about 71,000 tonnes, to 23.621 million barrels, or 3.72 million tonnes, Enterprise Singapore data showed. A surge in arbitrage flows into the Singapore hub in March, with similar levels expected in April, helped lift fuel oil stocks away from a near 1-1/2-year low in February. Refinitiv Oil Research assessed fuel oil flows into East Asia at 5.5 to 6 million tonnes in April, similar to the 5.92 million tonnes seen in March and well above the 2020 monthly average of 4.68 million tonnes. Compared with last year, Singapore’s residual fuel stocks were 3% higher in the week to Wednesday, marking the first year-on-year surplus in three months. This came as fuel oil net imports jumped 59% in the week to April 7 to a two-week high of 695,000 tonnes but were below the 2021 weekly average of 799,000 tonnes, the data showed. Weekly figures, however, are volatile. Singapore fuel oil exports were at a three-week low of 362,000 tonnes. The largest net imports were from the Netherlands, at 193,000 tonnes, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 144,000 tonnes, Malaysia with 112,000 tonnes and the United States with 92,000 tonnes. Singapore imports from the Netherlands were at a near two-year high as inventories in the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) hub ballooned, giving way to arbitrage opportunities. Fuel oil inventories in the ARA hub, which was a key exporter of residual fuels to Singapore prior to the introduction of stricter bunker fuel rules in 2020, hit a record high of 1.805 million tonnes in the week to April 1. Singapore’s top fuel oil net exports destinations were South Korea at 102,000 tonnes, China at 57,000 tonnes and 41,000 tonnes going to Hong Kong. April 7, Fuel oil Total Imports Total Exports Net Imports (in tonnes) ALGERIA 11,584 0 11,584 AUSTRALIA 75,062 18,434 56,628 BELGIUM 50,321 0 50,321 BRAZIL 2 0 2 BRUNEI 0 0 0 CAMBODIA 0 0 -0 CHILE 16,333 0 16,333 CHINA 0 57,039 -57,039 CONGO, DEM REP OF 11,531 0 11,531 HONG KONG 0 40,638 -40,638 INDIA 26,815 0 26,815 INDONESIA 40,366 0 40,366 JAMAICA 1 0 1 JAPAN 4 0 4 KOREA, REP OF 12 101,639 -101,628 MALAYSIA 247,915 135,574 112,341 MALTA 26,058 0 26,058 MEXICO 52,206 0 52,206 NETHERLANDS 193,359 0 193,359 NEW CALEDONIA 0 8,298 -8,298 RUSSIA 69,936 0 69,936 SOUTH AFRICA 2 0 2 TAIWAN 2 0 2 UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 143,705 0 143,705 UNITED STATES 91,682 0 91,682 TOTAL 1,056,895 361,622 695,273 (Reporting by Roslan Khasawneh; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions – https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html