Diesel Pulled Away From Europe To US Ahead Of Imports Ban

Diesel traders are diverting cargoes away from the EU and are instead sending cargoes to the US just ahead of the Russian oil product ban according to Vortexa and tanker-tracking data from Bloomberg.

• Four vessels hauling about 2.9mn barrels of diesel-type fuel updated their destinations to New York in recent weeks, having previously signalled ports in northwest Europe.
• A fifth cargo also recently loaded some diesel in Amsterdam, signalling to head to Florida.
• This suggests that despite the pending import ban on Russian oil products on 5 Feb, the US may have an even more acute supply situation as freezing weather halted more than a third of Texas Gulf Coast oil-refining capacity late last year.
• Overall supplies of diesel-type fuel in northwest Europe have been supported by rising stockpiles in the ARA oil trading hub — but these inventories are still below the seasonal norm.
• Russian diesel arrivals at AERA hit an eight-month high in December while total diesel arrivals into ARA from anywhere reached the highest levels in December since June 2019, according to Vortexa figures.