Shell cuts oil imports at Singapore refinery

Shell has cut its crude oil imports at its Singapore refinery due to extended repair work at its SBM (single booy mooring) facility until June. The facility is located about 2 miles south of Bukom, the island south of Singapore where the refinery is located. The company now transports crude via ship-to-ship transfers onto smaller Aframax tankers before shipping it to the refinery on Pulau Bukom, which increases transportation costs. Crude imports to Bukom in May fell to 3 million barrels, down from 7.65 million barrels in April. Repair work began in February and has been extended until June, according to the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore website.

Shell declined to comment on SBM’s operational status, transport costs, crude oil imports and product exports, citing commercial confidentiality. Prior to repairs, crude oil was mostly imported through SBM. Aframax tankers, carrying around 600,000 barrels of oil, are limited to crude imports to the refinery and transfer their cargo from VLCCs, capable of transporting 2 million barrels of crude oil, in Nipah, an Indonesian STS site south of Singapore. The VLCCs unload oil at the SBM because they can’t dock at the Bukom jetties due to shallow water.

Gas exports from Bukom fell in April and May, reportedly due to low processing margins in the region given ample fuel supplies. The Bukom Refinery, Shell’s only refining and petrochemical center in Asia, has capacity to process 237,000 barrels per day of crude oil. Shipping data comes from Refinitiv Eikon and Kpler. The last VLCC to deliver crude oil to the refinery was in December 2019%, according to Kpler. QEYC AI Technology automatically produced this brief.%


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