Clipperdata News

More than two dozen oil vessels were clustered off Louisiana seaports on Tuesday as the U.S. Coast Guard and port operators assessed damages wreaked by Hurricane Ida, according to sources and Refinitiv Eikon data.Dozens of ports from Louisiana to Alabama closed as Ida tore through the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the coast on Sunday. A few have reopened with restrictions on vessel drafts.Ida made landfall at Port Fourchon, Louisiana, packing 150-mile-per-hour (240 km-per hour) winds that knocked out power to a substantial part of the state.

Widespread flooding from Hurricane Ida and power outages slowed efforts on Tuesday by energy firms to assess damages at oil production facilities, ports, and refineries.Nearly all of Louisiana lost electrical power on Monday after one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the region downed transmission lines and flooded communities. Coastal areas were swamped by a storm surge so great it reversed the flow of the Mississippi River.Analysts said it could take two to three weeks to restart producing platforms and fully resume output at Louisiana refineries.

Asian spot liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices hovered above $4 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) this week as cargo loadings from the United States were delayed due to a powerful hurricane.The average LNG price for October delivery into northeast Asia <LNG-AS> was estimated at about $4.05 per mmBtu, down five cents from the previous week.Loadings of LNG cargoes from the U.S. have been delayed following Hurricane Laura, which made landfall early Thursday near the Texas-Louisiana border and is one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the region.U.S.

Oil and gas exports from the United States have been severely disrupted by Hurricane Laura, with nearly a million barrels per day (bpd) of crude exports likely reduced this week by closures of U.S. Gulf Coast terminals and disruptions at ports.The hurricane also temporarily suspended operations at several liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in the world’s third largest exporter of the super-cooled gas, with shipments on track to fall to their lowest in 18 months.Laura made landfall early Thursday near the Texas-Louisiana border…

Loadings of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes from the United States likely will be delayed as a powerful storm strikes the heart of the U.S. oil and gas industry on the Gulf Coast, forcing several LNG plants to shut.Hurricane Laura made landfall early on Thursday in southwestern Louisiana as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the state, with forecasters warning it could push a wall of water 40 miles (64 km) inland from the sea. Landfall came near Louisiana's border…

Crude exports from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) are hitting a record high even as U.S. crude exports have fallen as the coronavirus pandemic has chopped worldwide fuel demand.Oil majors Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc are the main winners from rising LOOP exports, because they pump most of the mid-sour crude exported from the terminal.LOOP largely ships out Mars crude, a medium-sour grade of oil produced from the Mars platform, a joint venture of majority-owner Shell and BP, located about 130 miles (210 km) off the coast of New Orleans.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes are piling up off the shores of Europe as the coronavirus pandemic severely disrupts gas demand, leading to delays in tanker discharges and a rise in the number of vessels used as floating storage, analysts said.Lockdowns due to the virus have led to a slump in industrial gas consumption worldwide, reducing demand for LNG and causing cargo deferrals, delays and cancellations, initially reflected by a build up of floating cargoes in the Far East and India.Despite some vessels managing to unload as lockdowns ease…

At least five fully-laden liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers are idling offshore India, as yet unable to discharge their cargoes, after importers there declared force majeure earlier this week, according to an analyst and shipping sources.Gas demand is falling globally amid the fast-spreading coronavirus which has capped industrial output, forcing LNG tankers in several regions to remain at sea fully laden with no immediate destination, the sources said.At least three major buyers in India…

U.S. crude exports from Corpus Christi, Texas, have surged to a record in recent weeks, often surpassing hubs such as Houston and Beaumont, Texas, thanks to faster-than-expected infrastructure additions.The infrastructure boom at Corpus Christi helped push crude exports there to a weekly record of 1.59 million barrels per day (bpd) in late December, more than doubling levels that held for the first eight months of last year, and above Houston's 2019 peak of 1.36 million bpd, according to vessel-tracking firm ClipperData.The heavy flows suggest that fears of a bottleneck that would impede U.S.

One million barrels of Alaskan crude is due in China next week, the first such shipment in almost a year, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon and vessel-tracking firm Kpler.China's imports of U.S. crude have fallen amid the two countries' trade dispute to 41,600 barrels per day (bpd) in the six months ended February, from 377,000 bpd in the first half of 2018, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.Tanker Sonangol Cabinda departed last week from Alaska's Valdez terminal carrying Alaska North Slope (ANS) crude and is projected to arrive June 6 in Qingdao, a hub of independent refiners in east China, the data showed.It could not be immediately learned who sold the crude.

A supertanker carrying Saudi Arabian crude has turned around near the Bab El-Mandeb strait, days after the world's top exporter said it was suspending all oil shipments through the strait following an attack by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement on two other ships.The Khuzama, a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) transporting about 2 million barrels of oil, has made a U-turn and is now sailing east - ClipperData and Reuters vessel tracking data.Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling the Houthis in a three-year war, borders the strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and is one of the world's most important trade routes for oil tankers.The Khuzama is owned by Saudi Arabia's shipping group Bahri and has been chartered by companies including PetroChina and Trafigur

The biggest divergence between U.S. and Asian gas prices in a year has created an opportunity for tankers delivering liquefied natural gas, with most departures from a key Louisiana terminal in the last month-and-a-half heading toward East Asia, shipping data released on Wednesday show. The facility, Sabine Pass, owned by Cheniere Energy Inc, opened last year as the first LNG export terminal in the U.S. Lower 48 states. The United States has been exporting gas out of Alaska since 1969. U.S.

A backlog of tankers off the shores of the U.S. Gulf Coast that swelled in the final quarter of 2015 is easing, with the volume of crude waiting to discharge declining by more than half in just a month's time. There currently are 27 vessels offshore in the U.S. Gulf Coast waiting to discharge an estimated 15 million barrels of crude, compared to 36 million barrels at the start of December, ClipperData said on Tuesday. There are typically 10 million to 12 million barrels of oil waiting to discharge at any one time, Clipper said. The decline comes as December crude imports are on track to hit their highest weekly average since September 2013, so far averaging roughly 7.9 million barrels per day, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

BP Plc exported nearly 670,000 barrels of minimally processed super-light crude oil from the Houston Ship Channel more than a week ago, according to ClipperData, an industry firm that tracks crude movements. The 667,638-barrel cargo left Enterprise Products Partners' ship channel docks - part of the company's recent $4.41 billion acquisition of Oiltanking Partners LP - on Feb. 15 bound for Rotterdam in The Netherlands, ClipperData partner Abudi Zein said in an interview. The shipment's documentation said the cargo was processed condensate - a super-light form of crude - from the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, he said. BP declined comment on the shipment or whether the company is among several companies that received U.S.

Beijing surprised oil markets with threats to levy tariffs on imports of U.S. crude oil, natural gas and other energy products on Friday, just as China has risen to the top of the list of importers of oil from the United States.China responded to $50 billion in tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump with a similar amount of levies on a variety of U.S. goods. But China also said it would impose tariffs on U.S. energy products, which analysts considered a surprise as previous tariff threats had centered on agricultural goods and automobiles."This is a big deal.

Analysts say intelligent analytics could give firm an edge. A young Israeli technology company believes the expertise it has built up in tracking ships for governments and security agencies could help it break into the much larger market for providing information on seaborne commodities. Windward, founded just over five years ago by two former Israeli navy officers, plans to launch a maritime information service later this year for banks, investors and trading houses, its chief executive Ami Daniel told Reuters in an interview. About 90 percent of global trade is transported by sea, but there is little visibility on what ships are doing and what cargo they carry.

The Southeast United States is expected to be hit with fuel shortages in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, as the storm barrels toward one of the largest energy-consuming regions in the country. Some states are already experiencing supply constraints as motorists fill up tanks as an emergency precaution. The region is not known for energy production, but there are significant storage facilities directly in the path of the storm that have already been evacuated. Roads in Florida…

A traffic jam of oil tankers has emerged along the U.S. Texas coast this month, a snarl that some traders see as the latest sign of an unyielding global supply glut. More than 50 commercial vessels were anchored outside ports in the Houston area at the end of last week, of which 41 were tankers, according to the Houston Pilots, an organization that assists in the navigation of larger vessels in and around port areas. Normally there are between 30 to 40 vessels anchored offshore, of which two-thirds are tankers, according to the pilots. Although the channel has been shut intermittently due to fog or flooding in recent weeks, pilots said those issues were not significant enough to create the backlog.

China's loadings of West African crude are set to hit their highest in more than two years in November as the nation's refineries race to stock up and offset falling domestic oil production, according to a Reuters survey of shipping fixtures and traders. China's November West African crude oil loadings, the bulk of it Angolan, are on track to reach 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), the highest since September 2014, the survey showed on Monday. December bookings are already expected to be similarly strong. "Domestic production declines and stockpiling continue to generate demand for crude," said Michal Meidan, Asia analyst with Energy Aspects.

The bullish view for Suncor Energy Inc (SU.TO), Cenovus Energy Inc (CVE.TO) and other Canadian energy producers calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by next month to approve a major pipeline expansion to the west coast, boosting sales of land-locked oil sands crude to Asia. But a growing number of shipping brokers and physical oil traders warn that any new influx of oil will hit a bottleneck in Vancouver, because of the port's inability to accept the megaships that dominate oil trade globally. This bottleneck marks one of the more under appreciated hurdles facing Canadian oil sands crude being shipped from its busiest port of Vancouver, these shipping brokers say. Middle Eastern producers already ship oil ship to Asia far more cheaply, thanks to the bigger vessels they employ. And U.S.