Asia’s cash premium 0.5% very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) fell to a 10-week low on Thursday, while backwardation timespreads narrowed further amid sell-offs.

The Singapore 0.5% VLSFO premium slipped to $8.52 a metric ton, while cracks eased to $10.04 a barrel.

The balance-Dec/Jan timespread for VLSFO narrowed to $6.95 a ton on Thursday, compared with $9 a ton a day before, as more selling interest emerged, traders said.

Meanwhile, the high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) market also softened. The spot 180-cst market fell into a deeper discount, while the cash premium for 380-cst grade narrowed.

Refining margin for 380-cst HSFO fell to discounts of $11.14 a barrel.

SINGAPORE INVENTORIES

Residual fuel oil inventories at Singapore dropped to three-week lows, after net imports fell sharply from last week, data showed Thursday.

Onshore fuel oil stocks edged 3.4% lower to 18.85 million barrels (2.97 million metric tons) in the week to Dec. 6, latest data from Enterprise Singapore showed.

Imports from the West and the Middle East retreated this week, the data showed, with most of Singapore’s fuel oil imports hailing from Malaysia and Indonesia.

OTHER NEWS

– Oil prices reclaimed some ground on Thursday after tumbling to a six-month low the previous day, but investors remained concerned about sluggish demand in the United States and China.

– Russia has pledged to disclose more data about the volume of its fuel refining and exports, sources at OPEC+ and ship-tracking firms told Reuters.

– A container ship collided with a floating bridge in the eastern lane of the Suez Canal on Wednesday but the passage of ships through the waterway was not interrupted, the Suez Canal Authority said.

– Saudi Arabia has asked the United States to show restraint in responding to attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against ships in the Red Sea, two sources familiar with Saudi thinking said, as Riyadh seeks to contain spillover from the Hamas-Israel war.

WINDOW TRADES

– 180-cst HSFO: No trade
– 380-cst HSFO: One trade
– 0.5% VLSFO: One trade

Source: Reuters reported by Jeslyn Lerh and edited by Mrigank Dhaniwala