Venezuelan crude arrives at Milazzo

A cargo of Venezuelan crude has arrived at the 235,000 b/d refinery run by Italy's integrated Eni and Kuwait's state-owned KPC at Milazzo, Sicily.

Around 1mn bl is on board the Delta Tolmi waiting to discharge, and will be the first Venezuelan crude at Milazzo since February 2019.

Another two crude cargoes are signalling arrival at Milazzo by 9 July, a 750,000 bl cargo of Baltic Urals and a 700,000 bl shipment of US WTI, according to Argus tracking. This suggests receipts may increase in July from just 90,000 b/d in June, and compared with 145,000 b/d in May, and is likely to be the result of scheduling and Milazzo running crude from storage. Receipts were 155,000 b/d in the first half of 2020, around 65pc of capacity in line with statements from Eni on its refinery throughput.

Of last month's crude receipts at Milazzo, 25,000 b/d was Baltic Urals crude from Primorsk, 20,000 b/d Azeri BTC blend, 15,000 b/d Libyan Al Jurf and 10,000 b/d from Iraq's southern loading terminal at Basrah. For the second consecutive month Milazzo took Abu Dhabi's Das Blend, amounting to 15,000 b/d.

Assessed by Argus, Milazzo's crude receipts in June had a weighted average gravity of 33.7° API and 1.2pc sulphur compared with 32.4°API and 1.7pc sulphur in May.

By Adam Porter

Milazzo crude receipts mn bl