Bahrain's state-controlled refiner Bapco relied on vessels controlled by the UAE's Adnoc and Kuwait's KPC to move products outside the strait of Hormuz after export restrictions left its storage tanks full, a senior executive said.
"This year we had to do a lot of ship-to-ship (STS) transfers outside of the strait," Bapco Energies executive Bader al-Buqaishi told the Adipec conference in Abu Dhabi on 4 November.
Most of Bapco's sales are on a fob basis, meaning buyers arrange vessels to collect cargoes in Bahrain. But disruption following Iranian attacks in March left Bapco facing a "tank-top" situation as products accumulated in storage, al-Buqaishi said.
Bapco worked with Adnoc and KPC to shuttle cargoes through Hormuz for transfer to buyers' vessels outside the strait, easing pressure on its tanks.
"They have the advantage. They have their own fleets that they can control to help," he said.
Bapco declared force majeure on its group operations on 9 March. By June, cargoes were being loaded onto Aframax tankers at Sitra for STS transfers outside Hormuz, ship-tracking data from Kpler show.
Adnoc's Abu Dhabi III loaded 65,000t of oil products at Sitra on 8 June. The cargo was transferred to the Torm Hermia and delivered to Singapore on 6 July.
Adnoc's Diyyinah I loaded 57,000t of naphtha at Sitra in August. The cargo was subsequently transferred to the Gisele, which delivered it to Singapore on 22 August.
Bahrain's refiners also had to process a "wide variety of feedstock" during the disruption, al-Buqaishi said.
This was not optimal, he said, but "it kept the ball going".
