European demand for new crude shipments still dormant

Stagnant European demand is said to offer little hope to sellers of Nigerian crude on Wednesday, as

China and India continued to show the most appetite for oil imports. According to crude oil market report traders said there would be three cargoes of Nigerian Bonga crude oil exporting in July after Shell began a routine two-week maintenance of its export terminal on May 21. Sellers of Nigerian crude continued to offer cargoes at relatively high prices, with BP offering a cargo of Forcados at dated Brent plus $2.85. Traders said demand from Asia, especially from India’s IOC which has absorbed several July-loading cargoes in a tender last week, was encouraging while European demand remained subdued.

According to the report floating storage of West African crude was being partially discharged in some East Asian markets, traders said, in a sign that shipping could free up and demand was rising. Still, refiners – especially in Europe – had sought to guarantee longer-term floating storage at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak and were not yet drawing on it.

It said that Global energy investment is expected to plunge by around 20% or $400 billion in 2020, its biggest fall on record, because of the new coronavirus outbreak, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday. China’s low-sulphur marine fuel exports rose by a third in April compared with March to the highest level yet after it waived export taxes for domestic refiners to meet shipping demand, Chinese customs data showed. Libya’s National Oil Corp (NOC) has sold Wafa condensate from storage tanks at the Zawiya export terminal in the west of the country, according to three trading sources. 

Reuters