Onshore fuel oil stocks fell by 2% to 20.81 million barrels (3.28 million tonnes) in the week ended Jan. 11, dropping to a four-week low, Enterprise Singapore data showed. [O/SING1]

The slight decline in weekly inventory levels came despite a gain in weekly net imports, which edged higher by 8% to 711,000 tonnes.

The top net fuel oil import volumes into Singapore continued to come from Malaysia at 317,000 tonnes this week, followed by the United Arab Emirates at 148,000 tonnes and Kuwait at 116,000 tonnes.

Top destinations for fuel oil net exports from Singapore were China at 104,000 tonnes, South Korea at 76,000 tonnes and New Caledonia at 35,000 tonnes.

January fuel oil inflows have been notionally assessed at 3.98 million mt so far, more than 1 million mt lower than December's close at 5.04 million mt, as the impending EU ban on imports of seaborne Russian refined fuels on February 5 approaches, Refinitiv Oil Research said this week.

Jan 11, Fuel oil (in tonnes) Total Imports Total Exports Net Imports

ALGERIA 21,941 0 21,941

AUSTRALIA 0 25,000 -25,000

BANGLADESH 0 0 -0

BRAZIL 45,065 0 45,065

CHINA 0 103,886 -103,886

CONGO, DEM REP OF 75,242 0 75,242

INDIA 33,599 0 33,599

INDONESIA 67,345 10 67,336

JAPAN 35,560 14 35,546

KAZAKHSTAN 7,160 0 7,160

KOREA, REP OF 502 76,497 -75,996

KUWAIT 115,790 0 115,790

MALAYSIA 371,566 54,698 316,868

NEPAL 0 189 -189

NEW CALEDONIA 0 34,998 -34,998

NEW ZEALAND 0 18,008 -18,008

SAUDI ARABIA 67,045 0 67,045

TAIWAN 6,207 0 6,207

THAILAND 13,343 0 13,343

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES 147,686 66 147,620

UNITED STATES 32,211 0 32,211

VIET NAM 0 15,741 -15,741

TOTAL 1,040,262 329,107 711,155

(Data from Enterprise Singapore)

(Reporting by Matthew Chye; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

By Matthew Chye