Singapore’s ship-fuel sales surge as global trade flows jolted

Ship-fuel sales in Singapore rose, with an increasingly large fleet of vessels calling at the hub as tensions in the Red Sea snarl global trade.

Purchases expanded 14% in May from April, snapping a four-month streak of declines, to more than 4.8 million tons, according to data from the port authority. Some 10,717 ships arrived in May, up 3.8% from a year ago, as cargo throughput surged 12%.

Global maritime patterns have been dislocated in recent months as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have assaulted vessels in the Red Sea, acting in support of Hamas’s struggle against Israel. The subsequent rerouting of vessels has boosted flows through an already-bust Singapore hub.

Although the majority of fuel sold in Singapore last month was conventional heavy oil products, the amount of liquefied natural gas traded was a record, the data showed. LNG sales were just shy of 49,000 tons last month, up 37% on-month.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.