Kuwait offers more gasoline for export

Kuwait offered significantly more gasoline for export last month, with state-owned oil firm KPC issuing three spot tenders for a total of 93,000t to load in May.

The company followed it up by recently selling a 35,000t gasoline cargo for loading in June and has issued a tender to sell another 35,000t in July. Prior to the surge in May loadings, KPC issued spot tenders for one gasoline cargo to load in each of February, March and April and three cargoes to load in August last year.

In contrast, it has not issued any spot tenders to buy gasoline supplies since November 2022, which is when the first crude distillation unit of Kuwait's new 615,000 b/d al-Zour refinery came online. Al-Zour's third and final crude unit is due for completion this month, which will bring Kuwait's total refining capacity to 1.415mn b/d.

Besides al-Zour, Kuwait has a combined 800,000 b/d of capacity at the Mina Abdullah and Mina al-Ahmadi refineries, which have been integrated and upgraded under the Clean Fuels Project (CFP). Although the CFP was completed in 2021, it is likely to have taken some time to consolidate the flow of streams between the two refineries, a Dubai-based trader said.

The CFP is designed to enable Kuwait to tap new export markets with products that meet international environmental standards. Latest figures from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (Jodi) put Kuwaiti gasoline exports at 12,000 b/d in February, compared with zero in the previous five months. The country exported 29,000 b/d in August, when the rare spot offers started, Jodi data show.

The UAE, Nigeria and Tanzania have been the top buyers of Kuwaiti gasoline this year, according to data from oil analytics firm Vortexa. Shipping fixture lists show TotalEnergies' shipping arm CSSA chartered the Khairpur last week to load gasoline from Kuwait on 14 June and take it to either Pakistan or Iraq.

By Rithika Krishna