Greek firm Helleniq Energy has today offered up to 45,000t of bitumen in a one cargo per month sell tender from April through to December for loading at its 137,000 b/d Aspropyrgos refinery.
Each of the nine cargoes is specified as being around 4,000t of pen 50/70 or 60/70 bitumen, while allowing for cargo sizes up to 5,000t. The deadline for bidding into the tender is set at Monday, 10 March, with validity until 12 March.
The offering suggests Helleniq's regular selling every month of the small cargo sizes, usually under single cargo spot tenders, will continue throughout the year, adding to the much more substantial large and small cargo flows that regularly make their way into Mediterranean, west African and other international markets from Motor Oil Hellas' 180,000 b/d Agioi Theodoroi refinery in Corinth, Greece, and from Turkish supplier Tupras' 238,000 b/d Izmir and 227,000 b/d Izmit refineries in Turkey.
International trading firms that sometimes buy Helleniq cargoes in spot and tender deals said the previous one-cargo Helleniq sell tender, for 20-25 March loading dates, had not been awarded despite springtime gradual improvement in bitumen demand in European Mediterranean markets as this years paving season starts slowly to get underway.
A four to five week planned maintenance shutdown at Helleniq's Elefsis refinery, which had been due to start on 23 February but is understood to have instead begin in the first days of March, should be increasing bitumen cargo availability out of Aspropyrgos. The latter refinery is a regular supplier of bitumen or heavy residue cargoes to Elefsis, feeding its coker when the refinery is operational.
