Saudi crude oil tanker backlog at Ain Sukhna begins to clear

A backlog of Saudi-owned supertankers that has built up off Egypt’s Red Sea coast is beginning to clear. 

The number of the nation’s own tankers tankers anchored near Ain Sukhna, a port at the southern end of a pipeline linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean has dropped to five, down from a peak of eight in mid-June, according to vessel tracking data monitored by Bloomberg. 

They, along with two Chinese-owned vessels also carrying Saudi crude, have been waiting a mixture of days, weeks and months.

Tankers anchored there previously are discharging their cargoes, generally at a rate of one every two days and after a wait of between three and four weeks.

During the course of June the rate of new vessels arriving off the port slowed from one every other day early in the month to about one every four days toward the end. 

No Saudi VLCCs have arrived off Ain Sukhna so far in July, but the Harad is due there on July 7 and the Khurais was last seen on July 2 taking on a cargo of Saudi crude at the Yanbu South terminal. Both vessels have previously shuttled cargoes between Yanbu and Ain Sukhna.