Oil Tanker Seen Loading at Key Saudi Hub for First Time in Weeks

A single oil tanker moored at Saudi Arabia's Ju'aymah single point moorings on Aug. 12. Source: Copernicus Sentinel/ESA

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(Bloomberg) — A supertanker is moored at Saudi Arabia’s main oil export terminal inside the Persian Gulf, the first such sighting in almost a month, as the kingdom strives to maintain shipments after threats to its exports were extended to the Red Sea.

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A satellite image from the European Union’s Sentinel 2 orbiter, captured on Tuesday, shows a very large crude carrier, capable of loading about 2 million barrels of crude, moored at one of Ju’aymah’s single-point moorings, which form part of the giant Ras Tanura oil export complex. The last time a ship was seen there was in the middle of July, though satellite images aren’t available every day, so it’s possible vessels have called there since.

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Saudi Arabia increased its Persian Gulf exports when a brief interim peace deal between the US and Iran allowed tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year. Since then, however, relatively few ships have been seen at the kingdom’s ports inside the Gulf. 

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Instead, the top OPEC producer has diverted millions of barrels a day to its Red Sea port of Yanbu, but tracking those flows has also become more complicated after Yemen’s Houthi militants said they would start attacking Saudi-linked ships. 

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Saudi Aramco didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Saudi Energy Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment. 

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Riyadh reported to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that its oil output increased by just over a million barrels a day in July, but remains down significantly from pre-war levels.

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Satellite images are intermittent and may not show the full picture of loading activity. Over the 26 days up to Aug. 11, the Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2 orbiters captured clear images just over half of the time. During that period, there were three gaps that were long enough for a VLCC to have loaded and departed without being recorded.

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Images from Tuesday show another tanker moored at the Ras Tanura sea island, about 20 miles south of Ju’aymah. The vessel’s dimensions indicate that it’s a Suezmax class ship, capable of hauling about 1 million barrels of cargo. It’s the second ship observed moored there this month, after a smaller Aframax-sized vessel was seen there a week ago.

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The combination of conflict in the Persian Gulf and, more recently, Houthi threats to Saudi vessels in the Red Sea has generally made it harder to track the kingdom’s exports since the Iran war began in February. Most ships no longer transmit automated position signals while in the region.

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On the kingdom’s Red Sea coast at Yanbu, images from two export terminals show reduced levels of activity compared to the period before Houthi rebels in Yemen threatened to attack ships calling at Saudi ports.

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Those pictures, also from Tuesday, show two Aframax-sized ships at the Yanbu North terminal and one VLCC at Yanbu South. Those ships could collectively haul about 3.4 million barrels of oil, but larger vessels like VLCCs usually take more than a day to load.