Gunvor to ship North Sea crude to Asia after bull play wraps up

Gunvor Group will send a supertanker loaded with North Sea Forties crude to Asia after the trading house amassed a large volume of benchmark oil in a month-long bull play. 

C. Spirit, a Very Large Crude Carrier that can haul 2 million barrels of crude, is fixed to load Forties crude on July 15 and then sail to Asia, according to tanker fixtures seen by Bloomberg. The vessel was chartered by Clearlake Shipping, a subsidiary of Gunvor. 

Last month, Gunvor and Trafigura Group, two of the world’s largest oil traders, bid heavily for grades of crude that define the Dated Brent benchmark during a pricing window organized by S&P Global Commodity Insights, better known by oil traders as Platts. Their bullish bidding rippled through the global oil market — prices surged, and the mood turned to bullish from bearish almost overnight. 

The bull play didn’t last very long, however, as higher prices attracted an influx of WTI Midland cargoes from the US, one of six grades that set Dated Brent, alleviating the upward pressure. The two companies have been much less active so far this month. The question now is how they are going to deal with the large volumes of oil they bought. 

The two companies purchased a total of 7 million barrels during a period of 10 days in the second half of June. Gunvor also kept 25 cargoes totaling 17.5 million barrels last month from a so-called forward chains, a mechanism that allows companies to offload oil that they own but don’t want to take delivery of in a given period of time. Three-quarters of their holdings are WTI Midland, and the rest are North Sea grades. 

C. Spirit is expected to arrive at Hound Point, the loading terminal of Forties crude in Scotland, on July 14. Another tanker — Nordic Tellus — also booked by Gunvor, is already anchored at the terminal and scheduled to load about 1 million barrels of Forties for Europe in the coming days, according to a port agent report. 

Gunvor declined to comment.

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