Singapore’s onshore fuel oil stockpiles eased after a jump last week, data showed on Thursday, driven by a slide in net imports.

Inventories fell 12.3% to 20.49 million barrels (3.23 million metric tons) in the week to Feb. 28, the latest data from Enterprise Singapore showed.

Net fuel oil imports, calculated by subtracting total exports from total imports, slipped 29.4% to about 579,000 tons as imports fell by a larger extent than a drop in exports.

The United Arab Emirates was the top origin for arrivals into landed storage at Singapore, followed by Russia and the Netherlands.

The uptick in storage volumes came in line with a heavy influx of high-sulphur fuel oil (HSFO) barrels into East Asia this month.

“The HSFO market has been flooded by heavy February arrivals from the Middle East at above 2 million tons for the first time in six months,” LSEG Oil Research said in a report this week.

Meanwhile, total exports out of Singapore storage dropped in the week.

Most cargoes stayed within the region, with top outflows heading to storage hub Malaysia, while other top export destinations included China and Sri Lanka.

The inventory levels have recorded volatile movements in recent weeks, though overall average volumes fell in February.

Singapore fuel oil inventories averaged 21.44 million barrels a week in February, lower compared to 22.46 million barrels a week in January, the data showed.

Cash premiums for the benchmark grade of 0.5% low-sulphur fuel oil MFO05-SIN-DIF have been rangebound in single-digit premiums this month.

Source: Reuters reported by Jeslyn Lerh and edited by Tasim Zahid