From Australia's MacroBusiness, March 18:
As we know, China has banned refined fuel shipments, restricting the world’s supply. Overnight, Korea capped exports at 2020 levels, and Thailand banned them.
As well, Singapore refinery runs have begun to wane, with capacity utilisation down meaningfully from 20-50% as it runs out of oil.
These shortages have not even arrived in Australia yet, but will over the next week or so as tanker volumes fall away.
80% of the volumes that flowed through the Straits of Hormuz went to Asia. That is, Asia has lost 12mb/d of its oil supply. It consumes about 40mb/d so that’s about 30%.
I really can’t see how or why Asian refineries are going to be allowed to ship fuel to Australia when home country supply is at risk.
This raises the likelihood that Australia will lose a much larger share of its fuel supply than the 15% of global supply offline.
30% seems more probable within a month.
The nightmare scenario, which is also the base case, is that resource nationalism overruns the oil market globally.
The US, which is legally able to limit oil shipments under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), is currently the focus of attention.
The ban on exports there, especially for refined products rather than crude oil, is a strong possibility as prices climb....
....MUCH MORE
At the moment, "Exxon, BP, Vitol ship most US fuels to Australia for a single month in three decades, traders say".
From Reuters, March 19:
At least 200,000 tons of refined fuels to be shipped Tankers will mostly be loaded by the end of March Voyage typically takes 30-40 days Australia usually relies on Asia for most of its fuel imports ExxonMobil, BP and Vitol are shipping a record volume of oil products to Australia from the United States in March, shipping data from trading sources shows, filling a gap left by the loss of regular supplies from Asia as the Iran conflict disrupts supplies.Australia usually relies on Asia for the vast majority of its oil product imports, but China and Thailand have banned fuel exports to preserve domestic supplies and refiners across the region are cutting output as Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz sharply cuts crude exports from the Middle East.At least 200,000 metric tons of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel have been loaded, or will be loaded, by the end of March from the U.S. Gulf Coast and West Coast for shipment to Australia, shipping data from three trade sources shows.The volume represents the most fuel shipped to Australia from the U.S. for a single month in more than three decades, based on U.S. Energy Information Administration data....
(1 ton = 7.45 barrels of diesel)(1 ton = 7.88 barrels of jet fuel)(1 ton = 8.45 barrels of gasoline)
