Three newbuild bitumen tankers will have delivered a total of around 30,000t from Asia-Pacific to west Africa in the first quarter of this year, in a highly unusual east-west flow.
The movement is linked mainly to planned positioning of the new tankers in areas of operation favoured by the firms shipping the cargoes, namely west Africa, the Mediterranean and northwest Europe. It also comes at a time of weak demand and prices in Asia-Pacific and coincides with a strong pull into Nigeria and other west African markets during the dry season peak period for bitumen demand.
West Africa's only bitumen-producing and exporting refinery — the 300,000 t/yr capacity SMB facility in Abidjan, Ivory Coast — shut in late January for planned maintenance work that is scheduled to continue to early March.
Dubai-based Rubis Asphalt Middle East will move the latest westbound cargo. The company, which is part of France-based Rubis Group, has traditionally focused on the west African bitumen business but since 1 January has operated the 60,000t ATPC bitumen storage terminal in Antwerp under a long-term deal. The westbound cargo will be loaded on Rubis Asphalt's 17,999dwt newbuild Bitu Ocean, which is set to arrive for loading at trading firm Trafigura's Tanjung Langsat terminal on 7 February. The cargo of around 15,000t will head to Rubis' 30,000t capacity west African bitumen terminal and trans-shipment hub at Lome, Togo, probably for first-half March arrival.
That will follow two 7,850dwt newbuilds delivered since late December to TotalEnergies' Totsa trading arm. Beluga and Feresa, like Bitu Ocean, were built at Chinese shipyards. The Beluga cargo has been delivered in the past few days to Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and the Feresa cargo is widely expected by market participants to be delivered to a Nigerian terminal. Both loaded at Hainan's Yangpu port, site of Chinese independent bitumen producer Chambroad's refinery.
The Feresa cargo is scheduled to arrive at Cape Town, South Africa, on 24 February, probably for bunkering as was the case with Beluga, before late March/early April estimated arrival in Nigeria.
The Argus-assessed fob Singapore ABX1 bitumen cargo export price has fallen to $364/t at the start of February from $435-440/t on 1 August, while Argus-assessed cargoes basis fob Greece — the more usual origin, along with Turkey — for west African imports, has dropped to around $355/t from $405-410/t over the same period.
