Cash differentials for spot 180-cst high sulphur fuel oil were little changed on Wednesday, as fears of abundant supplies were offset by persisting attacks on Russian refining systems.

Spot 180-cst high sulphur fuel oil differentials held steady on discounts to Singapore quotes at $6.29 per ton.

“Even though Russia is thinking of deferring planned spring refinery maintenance to offset the decline in refining due to Ukrainian attacks, we estimate Russia would only be able to offset about half of the refinery outages this way and will still be forced to lower HSFO exports,” analysts at FGE said in a note late on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s cash differentials for very low sulphur fuel oil fell by 17 cents to $1.01 per ton.

INVENTORY DATA

– Fujairah stocks of fuel oil declined by 264,000 barrels to two-week low of 19.785 million barrels in the week to March 25, S&P Global Commodity Insights data showed.

OTHER NEWS

– Japanese oil refiner Idemitsu Kosan 5019.T has restarted a 160,000 barrels per day crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Aichi refinery in central Japan on Feb. 23, following a shutdown due to a glitch, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.

– PetroChina last year imported 40 million metric tons of crude oil and 22.7 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia, company president Huang Yongzhang said on Wednesday.

Source: Reuters reported by Mohi Narayan and edited by Pooja Desai