Americas News
Callao and Guayaquil See Tight Avails on Reduced Refinery Output
Tight bunker avails in the Peruvian port of Callao and the Ecuadorian port of Guayaquil have been persisting this week as a result of reduced outputs by refineries serving those markets, Platts reports.
"The situation in Peru is complicated because the [Talara] refinery is producing at low rates and it is hard to satisfy the demand in the bunker market," said a market source.
Petróleos del Perú S.A. (Petroperú), which is the sole fuel oil supplier to the Peruvian market, is noted to be in the process of expanding its 62,000 barrel per day (bpd) Talara oil refinery.
As a result of the expansion, the refinery is said to be working at 60 percent capacity, and is expected to remain doing so until September.
It is further noted that Petroperu sells most of its production to the export market through tenders, leaving limited volumes available to the bunker market.
Callao's competing port of Guayaquil is also seeing tight avails resulting from the partial shutdown of EP Petroecuador's (Petroecuador's) 45,000 bpd Libertad refinery.
The refinery has three units, including the Parsons, Universal, and Cautivo untis, one of which is said to have been offline since May for maintenance, although there has been conflicting reports as to the specific unit that is down.
"The main plant [of La Libertad refinery] is still out of service," said an Ecuadorean bunker supplier.
Two Ecuadorean suppliers have said that they expect new product to load from the refinery by the week's end.
"I sold all the product I loaded during the weekend to prompt vessels," one of the suppliers said.
Last week, market sources said Suez was out of HFO and has tight avails of low sulfur MGO, with no restocking date confirmed.
