London — The volume of refined oil products set to arrive into West Africa in September so far totals 208,000 mt, with the volume expected to arrive in August amounting to 921,000 mt, data from S&P Global Platts trade flow software cFlow showed Thursday.
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Register NowMost tankers on their way to West Africa loaded in Europe and are heading to Lagos in Nigeria. Only one medium-range tanker, the Gan-Triumph, loaded a 37,000 mt cargo in Houston on the US Gulf Coast and is due to land in Lagos around August 29, according to cFlow.
Gasoline imports into the West African region remain steady, amounting to between 750,000 mt and 824,000 mt for August, and up to 208,000 mt so far in September, according to S&P Global Platts trade flow software cFlow. "The DSDP is buying around 700,000 mt of gasoline," a source said.
Demand into West Africa continues to be sustained at its regular levels.
"Demand into Nigeria is between 1 and 1.2 million mt of gasoline per month," the source added.
However, the arrival of 208,000 mt of gasoline in the first week of September, the highest weekly total since March, according to cFlow, could indicate a possible restocking of supply, despite concerns that supply into the region would be affected by India's Reliance Industries declaring force majeure on gasoline exports from its Jamnagar refinery last week.
In the meantime, trading activity remained slow in the high sulfur gasoil market offshore Lome, with some participants pointing to the lack of regional demand. Only between 97,000 mt and 171,000 mt of gasoil were set in arrive in West Africa this month.
According to a trader, the West African gasoil market has actually been getting tight.
"There is almost no high sulfur gasoil still available offshore Lome," he said, adding that he expected premiums to rise once the market becomes really dry. "For the moment, demand can still be covered, but not for long."
However, according to another trader, there was no sign of tightness in the market.
"The WAF gasoil market looks better than it was as it was massively oversupplied but there is still product offshore," he said. "Overall, most demand [for gasoline and gasoil] is currently into Nigeria."
--Virginie Malicier, virginie.malicier@spglobal.com
--Solomon Lanitis, solomon.lanitis@spglobal.com
--Edited by James Leech, james.leech@spglobal.com