Saudi state-controlled Aramco has cancelled or deferred term crude supplies to some European refiners that were scheduled to load in late September, according to market sources.
At least three European refiners have had cargoes cancelled or pushed from the final 10 days of this month to as late as November, the sources said. Two others expect to be notified of delays or cancellations to their September cargoes in the coming days.
One source said all Saudi cargoes scheduled to load in the final 10 days of September are at risk of being cancelled and added that around five days of Saudi crude inventories remain at the Red Sea port of Yanbu. This was not directly confirmed, and Aramco declined to comment.
The delays point to a prolonged outage on Saudi Arabia's 7mn b/d East-West crude pipeline, which has been shut since an attack on 10 September.
Aramco began notifying some European customers last week, before the pipeline attack, that early September exports from Sidi Kerir were delayed by around two weeks. Sources at the time linked this to attacks by Yemen-based Houthi militants on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea.
The damage to East-West pipeline has probably worsened those delays. The line moves crude from oil fields near the Mideast Gulf to Yanbu for export to Ain Sukhna in Egypt, before the crude moves through the 2.5mn b/d Sumed pipeline to Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean coast.
Saudi exports from Sidi Kerir have been around 1.95mn b/d in the first two weeks of September, and arrivals at Ain Sukhna have been around 1.40mn b/d, according to trade and analytics platform Vortexa. No Saudi crude has departed Yanbu since 11 September. This data may not include tankers that turned off AIS transponders for security.
European term customers are waiting for October allocations from Aramco, which typically surface around the 10th of the month before loading.
Some European term customers, like Polish state-controlled Orlen, have stepped up spot buying to cover the shortfall in Saudi supply. Orlen has issued at least eight tenders since 11 September for grades from the Mediterranean, the North Sea and west Africa.
