Mystery of missing bunkers solved

Although bunker prices for Cape Town went missing for two weeks at the same time as press reports appeared stating that oil traders were filling SA storage to the brim, the two issues were not linked, according to Cockett Marine Oil, which supplies FTW’s weekly bunker prices. The confusion about the two transpired when CT bunker prices became unavailable at exactly the time that the local press reported that SA’s 45-million-barrel strategic crude reserve depot was filled to capacity. The reason, they said, was because global crude prices had been depressed since an oversupply scenario saw them cut by half last year. So oil traders were out in force around the globe frantically hunting for spare space, obviously in the hope that they could take advantage of higher future oil prices. And available storage space in SA triggered their interest because it is one of the world’s largest oil storage centres. According to Reuters, the six underground crude bunkers at Saldanha Bay are leased out by SA’s parastatal Strategic Fuel Fund Association (SFF), and the US firm Chevron which owns oil in one of the tanks, mainly to supply its CT refinery. But oil traders had not deprived the CT refinery of storage space for its stock of raw crude. Rather, according to a Cockett spokesman, the only problem was that it had been kept waiting for a new delivery of crude. Even when basic crude is finally delivered, the refinery still has to check the delivery is of the right specifications. After this is complete, FTW was told, the oil can be cross-pumped to the refinery. “And,” said the spokesman, “once processed, prices will again become available. We hope it will be this week.”